A Random Look Back at the Broadway Season

The spring rush of Broadway openings is over, the Tony nominations are out, and I have a lot of catching up to do. (I haven’t been idle: my Opinion piece on Broadway’s championing of D.E.I. ran in the Washington Post last week. You can read it here.)   

Too many shows to review, but here are a few random thoughts on the recently wrapped-up Broadway season. 

Musicals dominated, as usual, and the competition for a nomination as best musical was even fiercer than usual. I was thrilled that Operation Mincemeat, my favorite show of the season, overcame a less-than-enthusiastic welcome from the New York critics and snagged one of the five spots (and four other nominations as well), not that it has any real chance of winning. 

Equally satisfying was the snub to Smash, the much-anticipated musical based on the cult-favorite TV series about the making of a Broadway musical. Though widely assumed to be one of the favorites going in, it was passed over for best musical, and managed only two nominations in lesser categories. Good call. With its creaky backstage stereotypes (high-strung gay director, imperious Method acting coach), overstuffed story line (not two, but three actresses vying for the starring role), and an underwhelming production from the talented Susan Stroman, the show managed to make a mediocre TV series look good by comparison.   

Then again, Smash wasn’t much worse than Death Becomes Her, which got 10 nominations (tied for the most) and is probably the early favorite to take the best-musical prize. Based on the 1992 film about two bitchy friends (Goldie Hawn and Meryl Streep then, Megan Hilty and Jennifer Simard now) who scrap over a magic potion promising eternal youth, the show struck me as overdone, gimmicky, and charmless. I’d say more about it, but I’ve forgotten it already.   

On the brighter side, I was pleasantly surprised by Dead Outlaw, an off-Broadway transfer about an Old West gunman whose mummified corpse became a carnival attraction after his death in a shootout. With a bracing country-rock band taking center stage, the show can’t quite fill a Broadway stage. But its wry recounting of the ghoulish (mostly true) story makes for a nicely ironic commentary on showbiz mythmaking. It got a best-musical nomination, and the Tonys sometimes reward small, quirky shows (e.g., Kimberly Akimbo, Fun Home), but Dead Outlaw may be a little too small and quirky. A better dark-horse candidate, if Death Becomes Her fades, is Maybe Happy Ending, a clever, modest, lightly likable musical about two robots in love, which premiered last fall and has shown surprising staying power.

One musical that seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle is Real Women Have Curves — which premiered on the last day of the season, under the radar, and was passed over for most of the major awards. Another screen-to-stage adaptation, it takes place in a Los Angeles dressmaking shop, circa 1987, where a tight-knit group of Latina seamstresses race to fill a big order while trying to keep one step ahead of the immigration cops. The show has a lively Latin-flavored score and a sunny “body positive” message, but also a surprising amount of dramatic grit. In a season dominated by camp and cartoons (I haven’t even mentioned Boop!), it’s refreshing to see a musical about real people facing real-world problems. 

The standout straight play of the season, for me, was The Picture of Dorian Gray, the new stage adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s novel, with all the roles performed by Sarah Snook, of Succession fame. I’m generally not a fan of one-person shows, but Snook’s chameleon act and quick-change dexterity (aided by a passel of stagehands, racing around the stage in the dark) is pretty dazzling.

The only problem is that, for most of the show, we’re watching her on video — some of it live, some of it pre-recorded, so that Snook can have conversations with herself. The encroachment of video onto the theater stage has been growing steadily for years, but this may be the ultimate example. Is it theater? Or is it Memorex?

In the end, the sheer precision and audacity of the staging won me over. All credit to Kip Williams, the Australian director who conceived the idea, wrote the deft adaptation, and put together what may be the most complex production I’ve ever seen on a Broadway stage. He’s nominated for best director, but for me he’s the star of the season.