Month: February 2021

The snowy London fog stalled my cab’s progress to Her Majesty’s Theatre in the West End. It was a good thing I was early; I walked the last section slowly, ambling through the Sherlockian mist, exhaling vapour like a peeved dragon. A most portentous prelude to watching the Phantom of the Opera: the second-longest running musical in the West End.

I was overwhelmed by the experience: the performance was electric and the costumes, the props, the actors, the music, the stage were all magniloquent. I was also staggered to be standing on hallowed ground; quite literally where British theatre began. The Elizabethan Era (1558-1603) was the well-spring of British theatre.

The patronage provided by the Queen to William Shakespeare and others, and the commissioning of permanent theatres like ‘The Theatre’ in 1576 and ‘The Curtain Theatre’ in 1577, provided the impetus. Barring frequent setbacks brought on bouts of the Plague in the 1600s, and misfortunes from fires that ravaged many hallmark theatres (and they had to be rebuilt) throughout the next three centuries, the spirit of theatre never waned.

The history of the British Musical is chequered: Musicals were successful in the nineteenth century and reached a peak with the Gilbert and Sullivan shows. The Second World War put a dampener on the old swing of things, only to be revived by the Golden Age of American Musicals. Rodgers and Hammerstein collaborations like Oklahoma, South Pacific, The King and I, and The Sound of Music crossed over the Atlantic and made an impact on British shores. West End found its mojo with My Fair Lady at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, where it ran for 2,281 performances.

The seventies are what defined the modern musical and Andrew Lloyd Webber became the demigod of the oeuvre. The fusion of religion, rock music and opera in Jesus Christ Superstar, Godspell (and Tommy) brought in a different audience. Evita’s anthem, ‘Don’t Cry for me Argentina’ (originally sung by Julie Covington) has never failed the tears. Webber’s run with Cats, Starlight Express, Sunset Boulevard and The Phantom of the Opera was as epochal as it was superlative.

“I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.”

― Oscar Wilde

While the Manhattan skyline defines New York, and the Big Ben is symbolic of London, the real tug at the heartstrings of these cities comes from the lofty firmament of its theatre districts – Broadway and West End. When I am in either city I strive to make time to see at least one show. This piece is on Broadway; Part 2 will be on the West End.

As I saunter down Broadway I am reminded by a guidebook that this pathway existed long before the Europeans arrived; a passage created by American Indians. It starts at Bowling Green in the southern tip, runs the entire north-south length of Manhattan and spills over into the Bronx. Of course, the section that made Broadway famous is in the vicinity of Times Square, between 42^nd and 53^rd Streets, the home of theatre in America.

I have seen a few marquee productions on Broadway and am completely enamoured of the scale and presentation of the musicals. The set designs, costumes, music, dancing and performances are all spectacular and jaw-dropping (in Miss Saigon, they land a close to real Huey Helicopter on stage). Phantom of the Opera, Les Misérables, Miss Saigon, Chicago, and The Lion King stand out from amongst the long-running musicals I have been privileged to see.

Even more spectacular than the shows are the theatres themselves: The Beaux-Arts styled ‘The Lyceum’ or Art Nouveau ‘New Amsterdam’ or the neo-Georgian ‘Belasco’ or baroque interiors of ‘The Palace’ or the neo-classical ‘Music Box’ are architectural masterpieces that have been awarded landmark statuses by the City. There are 41 theatres on Broadway, all 500-plus seaters equipped with well-appointed lobby bars, banistered staircases, majestic stages, and alcoves and textured walls nurturing theatre memorabilia from the century just gone by.

Broadway theatre is not just a sub-culture of the locals or an indulgent pastime of intellectuals, it is a big-business money-spinner. In the 2017-18 season, 13.79 million people attended and the productions raked-in $1.7 billion.