After much deliberation, and an initial announcement last week that the Tony Awards would not be televised this year due to the Writer’s Guild of America strike, the WGA and the Tonys producers came to an agreement earlier this week allowing the show to go on (on June 11, as scheduled), albeit without any “screenwriter-scripted material”—precisely what that means remains to be seen. The decision comes as fears mounted that Broadway, already staggered by the effects of the long shutdown during the COVID-19 pandemic, would be deeply wounded in its ongoing attempts to keep the industry afloat. The televised Tony Awards ceremony serves as means to stimulate inbound tourism interests in the latest season of theater. New York City’s economy, in turn, is deeply affected by theater tourism.
This is great news, as last week’s announcements of Tony nominees has stirred sharp interest and excitement about potential big winners. While, as always, there were surprises and snubs, many of the nominations were as expected, with Some Like It Hot (click the link for my five star review from earlier this season) leading the way with 13 nominations, including Best New Musical. Other new musicals getting the nod include &Juliet (with nine nominations overall), New York, New York (also with nine Tony nominations, see review below), Kimberly Akimbo and Shucked. Insiders see a toss-up between Some Like It Hot and Shucked (see review below), but things change in these contests very quickly.
Best New Play candidates were Between Riverside and Crazy, Ain’t No Mo’ (which closed in December after a very short run), Cost of Living, Fat Ham (reviewed below) and Leopoldstadt. This surely will be an impossible-to-predict category, though Leopoldstadt has been running successfully since last fall and is possibly the last play of Tom Stoppard, considered by many to be one of the greatest living playwrights. Sentiment could tip his way.
Here’s a brief review of some of the hot new shows for you to consider seeing in the runup to the Tonys in June.
Fat Ham (On Broadway at the American Airlines Theatre through June 25)
*****/***** (five stars out of five)
Ordinarily I disdain rewrites of Shakespeare plays (or of any classic playwright, for that matter), but sometimes they really, really work. James Ijames’ brilliant Fat Ham completely changes the premise of Hamlet—setting it instead in a suburban, southern American, lower-middle class, black household. Juicy, the protagonist, our Hamlet if you will, is trying desperately to transcend his dysfunctional family life, studying “Human Resources” at the University of Phoenix online. That is, until his mother spends his college fund and he’s forced to drop out. It becomes wildly apparent that all of Juicy’s hope and ambition is useless in the face of constant sabotage. We see quickly, especially as Juicy—magnificently played by the talented Marcel Spears—routinely breaks the fourth wall to commune with us, that he is doomed. Originally staged at the Public Theater off-Broadway, the transfer to Broadway is even better than the original
Shucked (On Broadway at the Nederlander Theatre – open run)
****/***** (four stars out of five)
In the surprise of the season, Shucked—which started out as a staged, musical version of the cringey, early 1970s TV variety show, “Hee Haw” which some of you may remember—has turned out to be a sleeper hit that everyone is talking about and is far more entertaining than could have been expected. Robert Horn’s book combined with Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally’s music and lyrics make for a simple, but pleasant story about a small town girl who goes to the big city to try to save her community, but ends up learning big lessons and enlightening all involved. Alex Newell’s standout performance, belting out big notes, and Kevin Cahoun’s delightfully corny comic relief punctuate this simple, but fun night in the theater.
Camelot (On Broadway at Lincoln Center Theater – through September 3)
***/***** (three stars out of five)
Lerner and Loewe’s musical re-take on the Arthurian legend, Camelot, inspired by T.H. White’s masterful novel, The Once and Future King, was a cultural moment of the early 1960s, with comparisons to JFK’s administration making a permanent stamp on that era. But for some reason producers decided to go with an Aaron Sorkin re-write of Allan Lerner’s book. Here, among other head-scratching alterations to the story, Merlin and Morgan le Fay’s magic and wizardry is replaced by . . . scientific explanation? And the “sword-in-the-stone” is removed by metal fatigue, for lack of a better term, not divine providence. The twist tears the heart out of an imaginative and mystical story about the invention of chivalry, leaving us with memorable songs and less than charismatic characters. Phillippa Soo (Hamilton) and Jordan Donica’s beautiful voices do nothing to mask their utter lack of chemistry. Nothing director Barlett Sher (The King and I) does (even elegant staging, swordplay and sets) can possibly rescue this broken spell.
New York, New York (On Broadway at the St. James Theatre – open run)
***/***** (three stars out of five)
Born largely of a rare cinematic failure of director Martin Scorcese, New York, New York is mostly known for the eponymous song that Frank Sinatra made famous and is now the unofficial anthem of the Big Apple. Trying to create a Broadway musical from a beloved song was, therefore, pretty much doomed from the start. Yes, it’s received nine Tony nominations, but the most deserved of those are for a grandiose, yet derivative set (Beowulf Boritt – hey didn’t we see those fire escapes in A Bronx Tale? Hooray for recycling!) and choreography (Susan Stroman). But despite Kander & Ebb’s original getting a helping hand from Hamilton’s Lin-Manuel Miranda, the show is more or less a mess. With several storylines involving characters in 1940s post-war New York striving to “make it,” it has potential, certainly, but it lacks pop. Colton Ryan brings very little depth to musician and gadabout Jimmy Doyle, and there’s nothing Anna Uzele’s beautiful performance (that takes the title song to the next level and beyond) can do to rescue their less-than-believable and far-too-rushed love story. The secondary stories and characters fail to stand out as well. See it for the dancing, which is extraordinary. But go home with that song stuck in your head for the next three weeks.
