New York Theater is Dead!

I am not saying this in an attempt to shock. I generally oppose grand sweeping statements about the state of American Art, especially for the purpose of filling up the pages of another tree-killing cultcha journal. But I announce this statement, loudly and with more than a hint of desperation. I think it should be shouted from the rooftops of VFW halls in every state in the nation and some foreign countries. New York Theater is Dead! New York Theater is Dead!

That means Broadway, but not just Broadway — it includes the downtown avant-gardo scene, middlebrow Off Broadway, and pure cheesola spectacle for the masses. It's dead, gangrenous, rotted. In a word, over.

(Of course some good work is still produced in New York — put that many talented and/or ambitious art-makers, not to mention that much money, in one place, and a good show is bound to slip through the cracks.)

But New York Theater, the institution, the collective, the movement, the world, the nation-shaping, consciousness-shaping machine, the stuff of dreams and lights and broken hearts, is dead. New York Theater is Dead! And I will say it again and again, until the chokehold that the idea of New York Theater has on the national consciousness is loosened. Theater in America is so much more than New York — and we, as a nation, need to know that, and spread the word.

I spent the summer driving around the United States, with the intention of seeing theater Americans actually go to. I saw 24 productions over a two-month time period — from New Mexico to North Dakota, from Illinois to Oklahoma to Kentucky — mainly in the form of Historical Outdoor Dramas — annually performed, site-specific stagings of a mythologized American history (e.g. Tecumseh! in Chillicothe, OH, The Hatfields & McCoys in Beckley, WV, TEXAS! in, well, Texas). I also saw numerous other performances, including religious outdoor dramas, dinner theater, Native American ceremonials as performed for white tourists, and community pageants. I interviewed the actors, directors, writers, and producers of the plays as well.

To draw a generalized picture of the intensely varied theatrical experiences I was honored to participate in would be simplistic and condescending (to know more, check out future articles in Theater Magazine and other publications, or, hell, email me at mayagurantz@att.net. I can say, though, that two persistent threads running through the folks I met were: a) they were intensely committed to the basic principal that live theater is still important and necessary in America, and b) they referenced "New York" or "Broadway" as a center of activity, a yardstick to measure itself against.

This kind of mindshare (forgive me) "New York Theater" wields is terribly depressing, especially considering the mediocrity currently oozing out of theaters in Manhattan and surrounding boroughs. I mean, Broadway used to be the hallmark, the gold standard of American theater — over 100 plays a year would go up, ranging from popular dog-and-pony shows to serious art — the best that each school of live entertainment had to offer. In our increasingly conglomerated corporate age, in a time when a theater producer (or an A&R executive, or moviemaker) can lose his job, reputation and livelihood forever by supporting one play/one album/one movie that isn't a monster hit, then the bizness is ruled only by the twin forces of fear and caution.

What we see are less diverse, less risky productions — leading to higher prices for the few choices we have. There's no room for trying anything new, there's certainly no money for it, so now fewer than 20 new plays go up a year on Broadway. If they're not revivals (Kiss Me, Kate!, Death of a Salesman, 42nd Street) or revues (Contact, Fosse), then they're musicals of bad movies (Footloose, Saturday Night Fever), or animated cartoons (the whole Disney oeuvre). The occasional serious play, or one which does not fit into the above categories, is hailed as great, no matter how hackalicious it is.

The cheaply conceived, poorly directed, generally heinous productions themselves are not to blame. What's to blame is that we have no alternative — what used to be one flavor of cake is now the only cake, and it's Twinkies with petroleum based cream filling. Anyway, blaming trash theater for the rest of Broadway's downfall is like blaming Ralph Nader for the Bush presidency. If Gore had captured more votes, he would not have been a victim of tiny margins and a corruptly conservative Supreme Court, yes, but, as Nader tartly pointed out, before, during, and after the election, Gore lost those votes all by himself.

Having few choices of limited quality is always a losing proposition. How many times have you heard The Producers mentioned in the past six months? How many articles? No, I haven't seen it (couldn't get tickets, couldn't afford 'em if I could get 'em). I did see a TV special which showed the cast recording the album. Director Susan Stroman, a great talent, really got the crème de la crème — fantastic actors and singers who hit heights of performances in a single take that gave me a whiff of what Broadway really must have been like in its heyday. The best. Truly. What burns my ass about The Producers is that it is all we have to hold on to — a musical adaptation of a Mel Brooks movie from 30 years ago, with a couple of, albeit talented, actors imitating the untouchable performances of Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder. Is this the best we can do?

Take a turn 40 blocks down, and a few degrees to the left politically, and it gets no better. The anemic quality of much downtown, "experimental" New York theater — theater of awkwardness, theater that takes the innovations of 30 years ago which began in action and intention and turns it into aesthetics: a look, a style, a signifier for avant garde — well, now, that's just lame. And it's being performed alongside the mothers and fathers of experimental theater who are still performing their same schtick from 30 years ago, leaving everything below 14th Street a sad parody of hermetic self-reflexiveness — bloodless, unspecific, and sad. I'll take spectacle over that any day of the week.

But where is even the fabulous spectacle? Not in New York. I'll posit that, in the U.S. at least, the best theatrical spectacle is the work of Cirque de Soleil, which manages to still combine breathtaking beauty with sheer unbelievable pageantry. Especially after this summer, I'll put my money with Outdoor Dramas for the inexpensive end of the scale — check out Daniel Boone: The Man & The Legend the next time you're in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, for extremely hot stage combat, not to mention the fact that they set the fort on fire every night. Or Blue Jacket, in Xenia, Ohio, which features lots of half-naked men on horses and cannon explosions. Or Viva El Paso! for that matter — massively wonderful dance numbers in fluorescent costumes. It's good stuff. Way better than most of what I see in New York.

Yet most of the folks I met who were creating this fabulous, popular theater continue to reference New York as if it were the cultural center of the world.

Narroway Productions, a theatrical ministry run by two Baptist women on Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's former PTL grounds in Fort Mill, South Carolina. Narroway Productions bills itself as the "Broadway of Christian Entertainment" — a name that connotes quality, high production values, the crème of the Christian theater world.

A role in the otherwise low-paying The Lost Colony, the nation's oldest Outdoor Drama, managed to snag some of the best actors auditioning for summer stock by balancing its low pay with high-profile artistic staff. Namely, Terrance Mann, the great Broadway Star, was directing. Mr. Mann, a truly wonderful theater practitioner with a continuing, and inspiring, commitment to the future of American theater, made that play as good as it was possible to be, but it is still an outdated, old play that needs to be rewritten, re-imagined, restaged. Nowhere near the best I saw — but the reflected glamour of "Broadway" keeps a cast and audience returning to the Outer Banks of Manteo, North Carolina.

What's funny is that, when I asked people this summer why they thought audiences weren't going to the theater anymore, people pointed to the exorbitant price of attending theater, either in New York, or at the life-sucking touring productions of Broadway shows that rape our landscape — Wal-Marts on buses. If theater is going to be $50 bucks a seat, and then suck anyway, why should anyone even think about going? I've spent — hell, I've charged $12 for downtown shows in run-down leaky theaters. This summer, I spent $12 and got horses, fire, American history, murders, music, dancing, spectacle, and story. Now that was my money's worth!

One woman I spoke to, a writer/director/actor/teacher in Lexington, Kentucky, told me that all theater is community theater. I found that a terribly provocative statement — whether it's Broadway or Small Town, USA, a play is for the community it plays to. And it is a question worth asking when you see a play — to whom are these people playing? Who is their community? Are they interested in making theater for other artists or just their friends, or others? New York theater is for the community to whom they play — each other. It is not a national theater. It is no longer a benchmark. It's time to reclaim the American theater for those who truly make it.

So I conclude by saying:

New York Theater is Dead!

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