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Friday, Jul 10, 2009
But those big-belting dames and over-the-top dance numbers bring out my inner theater geek -- and give my heart a wedgie.
Editor's note: Salon spotlights theater this week in anticipation of Sunday's Tony Awards.
By Sarah Hepola
Read more: Drama, Broadway, Theater, Arts & Entertainment, Tony Awards, Arts & Entertainment Features, Sarah Hepola
June 13, 2008 | Of all the major awards shows, the Tonys may be the most unloved. If the Oscars are the night of a thousand stars, then the Tonys are a mostly dark and windswept night. "People whose names and faces I didn't recognize from shows I haven't seen" -- that's how writer David Marchese described the experience of being backstage at the Tonys on Salon last year. And for most people, that pretty much sums it up; the Tonys are the broadcast equivalent of someone else's summer camp story. Hosted by Whoopi Goldberg.
"Do they even still have the Tonys?" my friend asked the other day. It's a fair question.
From 2001 to 2004, the show lost 30 percent of its viewership, and the audience keeps skewing older. With so many channels on cable, so many exciting things to do on a Sunday -- laundry, for instance -- it's hard to believe that anyone outside the chattering classes of the New York theater world cares too much about another black-tie circle jerk. Is anyone really tuning in to see what the cast of "August: Osage County" is going to wear? While it's true that corny, old-fashioned song and dance is enjoying a resurgence thanks to "High School Musical," that phenomenon has nothing to do with the Great White Way. For kids with a throbbing thing for Zac Efron, I suspect the Tonys is a square, graying old dame, like spending an evening with the school librarian. I'm not saying no one young likes the show. There is a Facebook group called "I Love Tony Awards." It has 249 members.
But I love the Tony Awards. Love love the Tony Awards.
Let me be clear: I don't care who wins; I'm not even certain who's nominated. What I look forward to are the performances -- those high-kicking dance numbers, the soprano busting out with a high C, the finger snaps (oh, the finger snaps!), the painted set pieces rolled out on pulleys, the key changes, the four-part harmony blasts that give my heart a wedgie. It's like getting the greatest hits of Broadway without the midtown traffic, the annoying tourists or the whopping entrance fee. Is "Cry-Baby" as cringe-inducing as I suspect it must be? Can Patti Lupone still shred the stage in her turn as "Gypsy's" Mama Rose? These answers, and more to come on Sunday! The Tonys are the pu-pu platter of American musical theater, a genre that I still love, and will always love, regardless of how many Adam Sandler or Reese Witherspoon comedies have been set to music and plopped onstage. Look, people have been saying for ages that Broadway is dead; all I know is that the funeral sure is expensive.
In order to understand my dedication to the Tonys, you must first understand something else about me: I am a theater geek. I haven't been on a stage since college, and don't plan to return -- unless, wait a second, did someone say karaoke? -- but my theater geekdom is something branded on me, as deep and true as any formative childhood experience. I may one day forget the names of every loved one I ever met; my teeth may rot and become lodged in a chewy ham sandwich; but I feel like you could come to me on my deathbed at 85, and I would still know the hand-jive routine from "Grease."
I'm not exactly sure where this fever originated. At 6 years old, I was performing numbers from "Sound of Music" for my family in our Dallas home. And at 8, I fell in a swooning, all-encompassing love with the movie musical "Annie." Children are obsessives, as any parent can tell you, and I was a stone-cold fiend for that soundtrack, practicing the dance moves in my room for an audience of no one, placing the needle back at the beginning just as soon as it began to skid off the last track. This is the kind of fire my brother and his friends felt for "Star Wars," for "Indiana Jones" -- movies I liked, sure, but they would have been a lot better with a swinging dance number! These days, a little girl might go to bed dreaming of being the next "American Idol," of being Miley Cyrus. But in 1982, I went to bed praying that I would make it to Broadway and play the world's pluckiest redheaded orphan. Hey, I had a shot. In two more years, I'd be 10!
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