Is Broadway Souring on the Brits?

About a year ago, after a theatergoing trip to London, I wrote in praise of Operation Mincemeat, the delightful West End musical about a bizarre (but true) World War II espionage plot, in which British intelligence planted fake war plans on a corpse, disguised as a drowned British flyer, in an effort to deceive the Germans about the coming invasion of Sicily. Though a critical and commercial hit on the West End (and later the winner of six Olivier Awards, including best musical), I wondered whether this very British show would work on Broadway.

Well, now it is on Broadway — with, crucially, the same production and cast of five (all members of the SplitLip theater troupe, who also collaborated in creating the show and composing its bright score) — and I found it even better the second time around. Yet, strangely, it got a decidedly cool reception from some of the major New York critics. Too silly; too British; too long. “An often tiring wallop of frenetic hyperactivity,” went a typical assessment in the New York Post. Diverting but “irksome,” groused the New York Times’s Jesse Green. 

This put a spotlight on a little-noticed trend over the past couple of years. For decades Broadway seemed to embrace virtually every London hit that crossed the pond ­— from 1980s mega-musicals like Les Miserables, to the innovative stagings of directors like Stephen Daldry and Sam Mendes, to the parade of tony British actors (Ian McKellan, Michael Gambon, Simon Russell Beale) who reinvigorated Shakespeare and other classic dramas. 

But lately, the top shows from London seem to be hitting a wall of resistance. The bad reviews for Bad Cinderella were hardly a surprise (Andrew Lloyd-Webber can do no right anymore with New York critics). And I can’t quarrel with the drubbing given to Tammy Faye — the hit London musical about the American televangelist, which bombed on Broadway in November. 

A much better British import last fall, Jez Butterworth’s The Hills of California, got mostly good reviews — but not the kind of enthusiastic raves that propelled earlier Butterworth plays, like Jerusalem and The Ferryman, to multiple Tony awards. Audiences stayed away, and the show closed in less than three months.    

Most surprising were the mixed reviews for Sunset Boulevard, the hit London revival of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical (from the days when he still had some critical cred), which transferred to Broadway in October. The show seemed to have everything going for it: a hot director (Jamie Lloyd), rave London reviews, and a starmaking lead performance by Nicole Scherzinger (who won one of the show’s seven Olivier awards).  Yet, once again, the New York critics were not bowled over; the show has been doing only so-so business; and even the best actress Tony award that once seemed Scherzinger’s to lose, now may be snatched away by a homegrown favorite, Audra McDonald, in the revival of Gypsy.

Could we possibly be seeing an America First backlash on Broadway — maybe the last place in Donald Trump’s America where D.E.I. is not a dirty word? (The cast members of Operation Mincemeat play multiple roles, switching characters and genders with quick-change fluidity, but without a hint of showiness or camp.) Or is it simply the not-invented-here syndrome — by New York critics who, after all these years, have grown tired of ratifying the raves of their British counterparts? 

Let me propose another explanation: the critics are just a bit intimidated. Operation Mincemeat is one of the most inventive, original, and impeccably performed stage productions I’ve seen in years: a model of narrative ingenuity, which manages an impressive range of tones, from Pythonesque spoofery to wartime sentiment and patriotic uplift. It puts to shame the paint-by-numbers songbook shows and clunky movie adaptations that have dominated Broadway over the past few years.  

I don’t want to prejudge shows I haven’t seen yet. But the Brits have given us Operation Mincemeat, a one-of-a-kind tour de force. Among the shows yet to come this spring from our homegrown musical talent: Smash, a Broadway musical based on a TV show about the making of a Broadway musical; Just in Time, the Bobby Darin songbook show; and Boop, a musical based on a cartoon character with no discernible personality, and whom I doubt anyone under 70 even remembers. 

Maybe one of them will surprise me — but for now, I rest my case.