I’m not always a huge fan of my birthday. As one who is mentally and emotionally probably still in his teens, my march toward’s mid-30s isn’t all that exciting. With that said, there was news yesterday that almost makes me want to rush my 35th birthday.
On my birthday (September 21) in 2006, one of the all-time great musicals will return to its rightful place along the Great White Way: “A Chorus Line, one of the biggest hits in Broadway history and a landmark work of the musical comedy genre, will return to the Great White Way in 2006.”
For all the hype, muss and fuss that treated Rent like the greatest thing since West Side Story, there really hasn’t been a genre-busting Broadway musical that transcended all possible expectations of quality since A Chorus Line — at least until Avenue Q. (Well, Sweeney Todd, I guess, but that’s a relative contemporary of Chorus Line, never received the same degree of hype or popularity, and I mean, with Sondheim, it’s pretty much just a given that it will almost always be close to brilliant.) I didn’t live in New York when A Chorus Line played Broadway (1975-1990), although I have seen stage productions.
For those of you out there saying, “I never understood the big deal. I saw the movie. It was no big whoop. In fact, I think it was kind of boring.” Well you’re right — the movie definitely isn’t all that. Why anyone would think Richard Attenborough was the right man to helm this film is beyond me. The filmmakers took a non-conventional, non-linear storyline about the lives of Broadway line-dancers, those who were likely never to step in front of the line and find their names on the marquee (in many ways, the show was the anti-42nd Street and All About Eve), and they tried to highligh a primary conventional plot centered around the former romantic relationship between ex-lead dancer Cassie and director Zach. It just all became a lot of blech. (They also added/cut songs, with the new ones being nowhere near as strong as what was replaced.)
The movie version of A Chorus Line is an unfortunate record of what truly is one of the few truly magnificent examples of musical theater from the last quarter of the 20th Century. While no production in 2006 could conceivably replicate the freshness and excitement of the original productions 1975 debut, nor, I’m sure, will it run anywhere close to as long, I’m much happier knowing that revivals of this show will take up residence on Broadway reminding people how much of what has come since really hasn’t been up-to-par. If it didn’t also mean I was still getting older, I would wish that this opening night, more than 18 months away, would could arrive tomorrow! Now I’m just waiting for that often-discussed, long-in-the-works revival of HAIR!
Out of Focus 