After all the accolades and raves that greeted the revival of "42nd Street", one does have to pause and wonder at Ben Brantley’s oddly sour appraisal in The New York Times. (I’m not typically a reader of other critics–at least not until after I’ve written my own–but the publicists for the show have press on a listserver: the major good reviews are reproduced and emailed. And the absence of a Times review made me, I must confess, curious. So I hied me to the Times website and checked it out. And thought that perhaps I’d ruminate about that in my own review…since "42nd Street" is hardly in dire need of yet another enthusiastic notice, which is, frankly, what I’d give it.) Mr. Brantley called the revival premature–not much more than a decade has gone by since the original eight-year run closed on Broadway–and a pale copy of the original, with very few genuine satisfactions.
I actually admire Mr. Brantley’s work, most of the time–not all of it, nor in all aspects, but certainly his ability to perceive on a higher, subtler plane than most (as befits the appraiser with the most powerful gig in town), as well as his ability to be precisely articulate about it. But why in the world would he land so heavily on such a demonstrably joyous stocking-stuffer, when clearly the audiences aren’t close to being in agreement with him? (And if nothing else, "42nd Street" is at least a show where audience response is unequivocal.)
When I attended the energetic and lush revival at the Ford Center for the Arts, I found myself fairly quickly understanding. Not agreeing by a long shot, but understanding.
This backstage fable set in 1933–adapted in the ’80s from the film by librettists Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble in collaboration with the late director-choreographer Michael Stewart–has been mounted often in the last decade, variously around the country and the world, with Mr. Bramble at the helm as director. The package currently on Broadway is a package he’s put together before, possibly even a little "pre-fabricated" in the assemblage. By most objective measures (even mine), it does seem to have come back to New York a bit soon, and it does show the signs of something constructed from a well-used kit: the set, for all its attractive opulence, does seem a little like one designed to go on a-visiting rather than sit down permanently–and I have to say that the cast, with the exception of Christine Ebersole as the temperamental star and–very arguably–Michael Cumpsty as the driven director, don’t seem like your first-string Broadway selection. They seem, rather, like top-flight replacements for feted Broadway originals who have since moved on: none of them astonishingly memorable, but all of them agreeable and more than able to do the job satisfactorily and with great professional élan.
All things considered…that’s not much to bitch about. The truth is, if the show has a slightly "tour" look, it’s the look of a first-class and splendidly maintained tour–and if the opening night cast here is not quite as delicious as the opening night cast of, say, "The Producers," well…we New Yorkers Who Get There Early are a little spoiled anyway. And not without some reason: we’re a select group, both those of us whose attendance is facilitated by the protocols of the industry (like critics and theatre professionals)–and those who, perhaps even more admirably (and certainly in the long run more consequentially) simply manage to show up through their own industry, and their pure Love Of Being There. A certain understandable sense of entitlement comes with that.
Yet in truth, the majority of people who see a huge hit musical over the course of a long run will miss out on the original cast; but the show doesn’t necessarily diminish because of it–so long as it’s vigilantly kept in shape and all concerned are bringing their best and the best professional efforts to the party. Mr. Brantley may be speaking to and for those of us who are spoiled by that extra whateveritis, thrill of a freshly opened gift, the excitement that admittedly is unique to that near-and-just-post opening period in which everyone’s ass is on the line–the element of career risk which, as Hal Prince pointed out once, makes it unlikely for a revival, no matter how well-done, to ever match the original.
But there are many thrills left after that one: the tunes, the choreographic flights of fancy, the fun of the familiar fable and the delight taken in it by those acting it out for us.
This "42nd Street" is not cynical or soulless–if it’s cut from a template, even a cookie-cutter template, the tool itself isn’t all that important.
What matters most is the ingredients in the cookie…