A couple of seasons ago, the producers of some struggling Broadway plays thought they could improve business by eliminating intermission.
Other than stemming the flow of walkouts, it didn’t do much good.
Now producers of some struggling Broadway musicals are trying to improve business by rewriting provincial jokes and eliminating profanity.
The thinking is that more rubes — that is, tourists — will come to the show if it’s family-friendly.
This smacks of desperation. Has it occurred to anyone that the changes are going in just as the tourists are going out?
Take a look at last week’s plunging grosses, and the only conclusion is — “Get those Hadassah groups from Jersey in here now!”
Over at “Priscilla Queen of the Desert” — whose box office was off nearly $80,000 last week — comedian Judy Gold is reworking some of original writer Stephan Elliott‘s Aussie humor.
I have no idea how you improve on the zinger “Go suck the chrome off a tow bar, you pathetic pack of poofs!” or an exchange like “Calm down or I’ll have to get ugly.” “Too late.”
This is practically Noel Coward.
But Gold’s taking a whack at it.
Producer Alecia Parker is overseeing new jokes. I like Alecia, but I can’t remember the last time she played a comedy club. If it’s funny lines she wants, she should get her longtime employers, producers Fran and Barry Weissler, to write some.
They’re really funny.
I once asked Barry how much money he made from “Chicago.”
“Have you seen my amphitheater?” he said.
(It was a reference to an article that day about a theater, designed by sculptor Beverly Pepper, he built on his estate in Westchester.)
And everyone in the business knows Fran has a wonderfully dry, brutally honest sense of humor. There’s a story about the time, years ago, she dismissed an assistant.
“Darling,” she said, “have you ever been fired? No? Well, it’s an important experience to have in life, and you’re having it right now.”
Hard to improve on that.
The other show undergoing rewrites is the wonderful “Billy Elliot,” which after three strong years is beginning to wobble on its toe shoes.
Swear words are being dropped, as are references and expressions that have been deemed too English.
“Are they getting rid of the miners?” one person wonders.
I certainly hope not.
One of the strongest things about “Billy Elliot” is that, while its setting — the 1984 miners’ strike in the North of England — may be unfamiliar to Broadway audiences, its theme — that of a boy who will take the spirit of a dying community with him into the world — is universal.
I hear something like 10 pages of new dialogue are going into the show. “Bangers” will become “sausages.” “Crikey” will become “You’re kidding.” And Margaret Thatcher will become Sarah Palin.
Whether the box office becomes “Wicked” remains to be seen.
THE celebrated critic John Simon is teaching “The Art of Criticism” this fall at the Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College.
Says Simon: “A course in critical thinking is not only a course in criticism. It’s a course in thinking. Both are rare these days.”
As theatergoers who followed his work for 36 years in New York magazine know, he’s a brilliant, witty writer.
Think of what you can learn from the man who wrote of the musical “What Makes Sammy Run?” — “For more than a week, I really can’t say.”