This is a documentary that may not know it but it's a relatively decent and sometimes (inherently for me) interesting overview cum history cum haigography of Broadway over more or less the last 50 years where it went into a downturn because of (waving hands around) New York in the 1960s and 70s, and for about altogether and cumulatively ten minutes it's also a look at how a not-high-profile play that's about to go into production with a Transgender woman lead, Alexandra Billings, and these two sides are at cross purposes.
The bulk of the documentary is fine, but leaves out a lot of details (how do they show quick clips of Hendrix and the Who and Otis Redding to represent how rock concerts became more popular for I guess a time than Broadway and yet not cut to HAIR for a minute or two) that even a practical novice like myself would want to see shown (well, I read Wasson's Bio of Fosse but that has a whole lot that this could get into since it is concerned with business as well as culture),and once it gets into the headlong Commercialization/British invasion of the 1980s it has this general take in the interviews of "yeah I mean these musicals were shallow, but... money, right?"
I have to wonder if the doc filmmakers should've seen more of an opportunity with the BTS of the production of The Nap, and it's not that they couldn't have been aware of how process and everything that goes with it in every step is compelling; they feature as one of the first major landmark moments for theatee and Broadway in the early 70s the Sondheim show of Company and Pennebaker's own film about recording the cast album, so it's there baked into how audiences in other mediums got exposed to the innovations at hand.
Maybe there wasn't enough of the footage or the production of The Nap didn't want *everything* open to the filmmakers, or (as another Letterboxd reviewer pointed out, the show didn't really stay around for long and was itself a London export),but if that was the case they didn't have to use this show as some thin skeleton to hang the rest of the story on to, even if apparently it was (somewhat) a critical success and Billings is a terrific interview when she's on camera (the director and writer are... okay, but what about the other actors).
Despite this issue of the story of this show being frustratingly small scale in the midst of a story of Broadway that feels so very cliff-notes (maybe even like a truncated school report?) I still enjoyed the footage that's here to give context about the Schuberts and Jacobs and the literal real estate maneuvers and the destruction of the theaters in the early 80s, I'm endlessly fascinated about how Cats became.... friggin' Cats, and I like the section on August Wilson. There's material here where you can sense the subjects are mixed and complicated about how so intensely commodified Broadway has become starting with Disney and movie stars coming in and riding off the coattails of the Lloyd Wbeer and British wave and how homegrown stories suffer a loss amid the unfathomable NYC rental prices.
If you need the most basic primer on the most contemporary history of the world this is a decent place to start, but it seems like there's more opportunity for Ken Burns or someone along those lines for a more comprehensive series on Broadway (sort of like his Jazz yknow).
One last thing... what was up with Jonathan Pryce humping that car in that clip from Miss Saigon? Is that what the rest of that show was like?
On Broadway
2019
Documentary / History
On Broadway
2019
Documentary / History
7.5Keywords: broadwaybroadway musicalbroadway theatre
Plot summary
A late 1960s to present day 2019 history of Broadway is presented, with an epilogue added of the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 literally shutting the theater scene down in its entirety for however long public health orders related to the pandemic. That transition over the fifty years saw musical theater be arguably the center of American popular culture in providing the popular songs of the day and successful Hollywood movie adaptations of both of musicals and plays up until the counter-culture era of the 1960s, to a more narrowly defined but still very lucrative form of entertainment for those associated with the few hits that become global spectacles. People associated to Broadway, including many actors, talk about their relationship to Broadway in a holistic sense. The discussions are not only about the theater scene, but how specific shows changed the face of theater, including the way that shows are produced, how the built environment, especially along 42nd Street and around Time Square, has in turn affected the face of Broadway in that holistic sense, and the effects of certain specific global events such as the AIDS crisis, 911, and the aforementioned COVID-19 pandemic. While many producers have tried to capitalize on the successes of the day, it is the arguably the surprise hits that come out of nowhere approximately once every five years that fundamentally do change how theater is viewed. Those shows mentioned include the musicals of Stephen Sondheim beginning with "Company", "A Chorus Line", "Cats" which was the first true mega-hit of the British musical invasion, the ten plays of August Wilson each story covering a different decade of the twentieth century, "Rent", "The Lion King" which was different even from the other Disney animated musicals that preceded it, and "Hamilton". Also discussed is the change from the mid-twentieth century where going to see a Broadway show was an affordable regular local night out on the town, to where it is in 2019 generally unaffordable to the general population in its commodification.
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A fine overview of the industry that could have been more
Fantastic primer for the initiates
I thoroughly enjoyed this due to my cursory knowledge of Broadway. It brings up a lot of interesting topics in a really vivid way. It shows why the stars are the stars, but at the same time casts a very wary glance of how commercialized Broadway has gotten. With high tickets prices and big-name remakes of popular movies, it often feels like the rich get richer and no one knows any better or any deeper. If they had added 20-30 minutes to the film and explained a few things more in depth, then there might be more 'something for everyone'. But it still covers a lot of territory in its 122 minutes, still makes me want to see a lot of these plays, a lot of them for the first time. I'll never argue with seeing Hugh Jackman or learning more about Andrew Lloyd Weber or August Wilson. This flick definitely captures the magic of Broadway.
The best documentary about Broadway!
Saw this earlier today as part of the DOC NYC series. It is, hands-down, the best documentary about Broadway and the whole commerce aspect of that industry. The footage of the gritty and crime infested 42nd Street and Times Square area during the late 60s-70s before the clean up of the 1990s is insane. Amazing learning which shows affected the industry and it's changes. The documentary covers the late 60s to the present so you see how NYC and Broadway both changed together and continue to do so. My head is blown how great this documentary is.