"Part of the problem: the generally lugubrious choice of musical material. Another: the overly careful and inoffensively middlebrow tone. Which may be why one of the few moments that broke through the taste and torpor was Billy Crystal’s lowbrow schtick from 'Mr. Saturday Night,' the new musical based on his 1992 film. Actually, the 'Yiddish scat' he performed — nonsense guttural syllables and spitty consonants sung in the manner of an Ella Fitzgerald improvisation — has been part of his act forever, with good cause: It’s so stupidly funny you can’t help but fall for it."
We’re going to stick around the #TonyAwards for more Yiddish scat performed by @MrSatNightBway's @BillyCrystal! pic.twitter.com/LuqEsY9C9i
— CBS (@CBS) June 13, 2022
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The Tonys and the Grammys were The Ones We Didn't Watch. Now we don't watch any of the awards shows.
Wasn't Mr. Saturday Night a sad movie, and Mr. Saturday Night, the fictional comic Buddy Young Jr., a jerk?
I'm reminded of The Comic with Dick Van Dyke. When it was on TV in the Sixties, we tried to watch it because Dick Van Dyke was so funny on his show. But the movie -- funny is the last thing it was. If you bear in mind that comedians are egotistical jerks who push away or disappoint or betray everyone who gets close to them, you can pretty much predict what happens in either film.
In years past, I was always perplexed about an award show for Broadway productions being broadcast on TV. I had never heard of many of the winners and, maybe, 90% of the US population had never seen one.
Cringey at best. I loved Billy Crystal for years, but I don't think I'm a fan of the older Billy Crystal. He'd probably not be a fan of the older me, either. I think we were both funnier back then.
I remarked to my wife last night (as I turned on Peaky Blinders) that the Tony's were on and that years ago, when I loved Broadway, I used to always watch the Tony's. She said she did too, and moved to the other room to watch it. But it's been years since I last paid attention to what was on Broadway or who was on the Tonys. Maybe I got tired of being preached at? Maybe the plays got worse, more preachy, almost predictably so? Certainly the musicals are worse and what passes for great musicals these days don't gel with me. It's not because I will only accept Rogers & Hammerstein or Lerner & Loewe, Gershwin or Sondheim/Bernstein. I had trouble with much of Andrew Lloyd Webber's plays. Phantom being the exception for me. So maybe I don't get it. But you cannot even get me almost interested in seeing "Hamilton", even as I see it proclaimed as the greatest play evah.
Tonys? Nah. No more for the rest of my life. Though I'm sure I'll get back to Broadway some day to see some plays. Some day. Maybe. It just doesn't hold the importance it once did for me. I walked in to see how my wife was liking the Tonys and she was asleep.
See my first comment on the overnight thread...it was all black and all gay all of the time.
Straight, white people are a rarity in the theater. As a result, we only get shows that reflect the sensibilities and politics of gay, trans (mostly) men, and increasingly the bipoc crowd.
You will never again see a new play written like 'Oklahoma' or 'South Pacific.'
You will pay your big bucks and you will be demeaned. You will be preached at. You will be scapegoated.
And you will like it.
Now that's entertainment!
If you see some Yiddish bear scat, you know the bear's been circumcized. Bill Crystal? Amazing I thought he was dead.
He looks marvalous. though.
Billy Crystal is still alive????
Billy spat on me in Schenectady in 1985…
The theater has always been dominated by Leftists, women, and Gays. How many straight men whistle "Show tunes"?
Someone mentioned R&H. All their shows were aimed at middle-aged women. that was the target audience in the 40s and 50s. Their shows usually star a heroine who's "overcoming predjudice" or battling Nazis or whatever. The romantic male lead include a good looking cowboy, a bad-boy carnival manager, a rich planter and a retired Austrian naval officer (both with conviently dead wives and cute kids), and the King of Siam.
Sad.
Yeah boy, s'nothing funnier than Yiddish words. Krusty told me so.
There were 5,000 people in the theater audience, and I would bet my fortune that less than 20 voted republican and less than 5 voted for Trump.
Case closed...
Not any number of cameras - even with a deft producer - can make a live Broadway musical involving to a television audience. Too bad but too true.
Pleased to see that The Lehman Trilogy cleaned up. Remarkable production.
Hollywood used to get ideas from Broadway. Now the traffic is usually in the other direction, especially if you include what used to be called the record business under "Hollywood."
The Golden Age of Broadway may have been whenever there were more plays being staged than there were Tony nomination slots to fill. Nowadays everything gets nominated.
And what of the Obies? They don't get any love? Are they still around?
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