We’re reaching critical mass, people — now let’s hope producers start really paying attention.?The Times’ Jason Zinoman seems to have had an epiphany at the Lady Gaga concert (and really, who wouldn’t?) and wrote “As a theater critic who has suffered through too many stale, pop-infused musicals, I suggest that Broadway would be smart to follow her lead.” Amen to that. Double amen, actually, since it’s something I’ve been preaching for a while.
Last year I wrote that pop groups like Pet Shop Boys regularly collaborate with teams culled from the musical-theater world. The reverse needs to work as well.?Back in October, when Gaga unveiled the concept for her then-upcoming tour, I noted that if pop stars can develop new concepts for their shows, the musical-theater community should adopt a new way of thinking that would draw inspiration from pop music. And no, I don’t mean jukebox musicals — they are the lowest-common-denominator way one can think about pop. I mean in both writing and conceiving shows. Some modern pop is a lot better at handling narrative than what Broadway gives it credit for, both in the concerts and in the songs themselves (Katy Perry’s “Waking Up in Vegas” and Taylor Swift’s “Love Story” easily compare with the?best show tunes of the past 20 years —?just have an open mind and picture them in a musical: They totally work).
Yet over the years, I’ve found the show-tune community to be completely disconnected from current pop music. The gap is wide and deep, something I find utterly baffling. Why nobody has yet tapped the high-concept Goldfrapp for a show, for instance,?is beyond me — that band can do anything from polymorphously perverse glam?to a Mary Poppins tribute. Free advice: If?you’re a producer working on an “Alice in Wonderland” musical, put Ms. Alison Goldfrapp on the line.
As for Gaga, in a weird way her approach is very retro: She’s actually going back to the age of Florenz Ziegfeld revues, when each song was its own tableau. She is Ziegfeld if Ziegfeld had put himself on stage.