There is a depressing sight that New York theatergoers are becoming all too accustomed to: a brick wall at the back of the stage.
Welcome to Broadway! Please enjoy the bare minimum!
Scenic downsizing is all the rage in Midtown for a range of reasons — skyrocketing costs, cold concepts, quick turnarounds. As a result, storied houses are morphing into university black boxes; shows into showcases; dramas into drab-a-thons.
How sad. Set design, an art that’s always been essential to conjuring Broadway’s incomparable magic, is being treated like a luxurious want rather than a basic need for a memorable night out.
Eye-popping decor has been stripped away, and annoyed audiences are still being charged top dollar like it hasn’t.
Look at what’s onstage right now — or, more accurately, at what isn’t.
We’ve got an unfurnished “Doll’s House” starring Oscar winner Jessica Chastain (top ticket $299), which features only a few chairs positioned on a turntable that’s lit like a hospital broom closet.
The no-frills revival of the musical “Parade” (top ticket $297), which began as a City Center Encores concert, has just a raised platform surrounded by lamps and more chairs.
The return of the Bob Fosse revue “Dancin’” (top ticket $297) has a projection screen and a few metal towers — appropriate for jazz hands, but flimsy all the same.
“Into the Woods,” another City Center concert that has since closed at the St. James Theater and gone on tour, had some wooden steps and simple birch tree trunks, because the main event was its sizable 15-person orchestra and stars such as Sara Bareilles and Patina Miller.
Meanwhile, “& Juliet” (top ticket $323), a jukebox musical comedy from London featuring Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys songs, is glitzier than the above, goes to multiple locales and features garish lighting, but is still designed to look like a bricky rehearsal space.
Everywhere you look, there’s nothing.
That’s not to say these shows are all bad. Some are sensational, others aren’t. But collectively, constant minimalism is a drag. I can’t recall a Broadway season in the past 15 years that was so aesthetically non-existent.
At first, streamlining is a novel trick, and you rationalize it to your companion. “I could really hear the lyrics this time!” you say with a little too much enthusiasm.
But here we are halfway through the season, and I can’t help but feel that I’ve taken a wrong turn into the parking lot of an Ace Hardware, where I am surrounded by unpainted plywood and assorted metals without any soul or point of view.
Will the upcoming “Bad Cinderella,” “Shucked” and “New York, New York” rescue us from our chair-and-air infestation? I hope so. Broadway’s imagery is every bit as vital as its songs and speeches.
Whether the effect is huge (Santo Loquasto’s choo-choo train arriving in “Hello, Dolly!” or Kelli O’Hara sailing into Siam on Michael Yeargan’s ship in “The King and I”) or small (Daniel Ostling’s emotional pool of water in “Metamorphoses,” the “Sesame Street”-style neighborhood in “Avenue Q”), scenery is a major reason we are transported, moved, tickled and excitedly talking when the show is over.
While most Broadway plays and musicals that started their runs after theaters reopened have struggled to gain a foothold at the box office in the wake of the pandemic, popular productions such as “Wicked,” “The Lion King,” “The Phantom of the Opera” and “Moulin Rouge!” have thrived.
People chalk up their continued success to them being well-known brands, but they also deliver sumptuously theatrical experiences. Audiences want sets!
And yet striking visuals have become the domain of opera houses and Las Vegas, both of which charge comparable prices to Broadway. And other world cities are also one-upping us.
The projection-heavy play “Life of Pi,” which has just come to Broadway from London, is a feast for the eyes (if not the mind) and the West End musical “Back to the Future,” while pretty much “Star Tours” at Disney World, will park a cool flying DeLorean at the Winter Garden Theatre this summer.
Last October in London, I also caught the Royal Shakespeare Company’s incredible “My Neighbour Totoro,” whose massive puppets and sprawling sets were more dazzling than any post-pandemic production in New York so far.
Last month, set designer Eugene Lee died at age 83. Over his long career, the man created the scenery for Stephen Sondheim’s original “Sweeney Todd” at the Gershwin (then the Uris) in 1979 and “Wicked” in 2003, which plays the same theater today.
When you close your eyes and picture Idina Menzel in the air clutching Elphaba’s broom, or Angela Lansbury in the pie shop wielding Mrs. Lovett’s rolling pin, your vivid memory exists in part because of Lee’s genius.
Decades down the line, when you try to nostalgically envision the shows you caught during the 2022-23 Broadway season, you’ll struggle — because there’s not much to see.