Tony Who?

I have to admit that I didn't even realize the TONYS had aired until I read Peter Birkenhead's article. And yeah, I was watching the other Tony that night (and yep, I thought my TV went out - which it actually did. Our new DVR got overheated and died, not as spectacularly as A.J.'s SUV - there was no slow-mo sound of Dylan burning. But that is another story and symbolic of something altogether Different).

At first blush there were a few things I agreed with Birkenhead on. Like the whole idea of the avant-garde, and non-linear storytelling. For awhile there I agreed with the whole thing. It was What I Wanted To Hear - expressing what I secretly feel and sometimes not so quietly say about the theater I see in my neck o' the woods. Clearly the article is reactionary and appealed to that reactionary side of myself. But after the smoke clears - I find that none of what Birkenhead writes is news. The theatrosphere has been hashing this stuff out for over a year now - with a lot more succinct and useful discussion. Articles like Stephen Leigh Morris' American Theater's Failure of Nerve or Jason Zinoman's New Dramas, New Voice, Below 14th Street that made the rounds earlier this month convey an awareness of theater beyond Spring Awakening and Doubt (a play which I found woefully pedestrian and old-fashioned in spite of the great work of Cherry Jones). Birkenhead argues nostalgically for the theater of the thirties before it was tainted by non-profit grant strategizing and development hell (has he read Harold Clurman?), which means he still endorses the idea of Broadway as the exemplar of how theater should be produced and what theater can be (which may be correct, but is an assumption that is certainly open to question).

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LitDept Theater Ideas
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Adam Szymkowicz