• NY Times article: That entrenched macho bias

3/10/21 (Wed)

I came across this article that I wrote a year ago but never posted. It’s pretty funny rereading it, so I thought I’d throw it in now. This critic recently complained feverishly about unmasked West End audiences on a trip to the UK, where masking is not mandated. Talk about the ugly American. The NY Times is sounding more and more like the Babylon Bee.

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Someone needs to give Laura Collins-Hughes a real job. The NY Times critic wrote an article asking film stars to return to stages around the nation to get things hopping again, a fine sentiment, though I suspect it wouldn’t take that much to get people back to the theater; as Japan has found, demand for communal cultural events even amid the pandemic is a lot stronger than many people think, especially among younger audiences, as long as the product is attractive.

What grated was her notion of the supposed disdain that “this swaggering cowboy nation of ours” has for theater, including “an entrenched macho bias, bound up in misogyny and homophobia, that makes it hard for the industry to be taken seriously”. Anyone know what she’s talking about? That’s presented as a statement of fact with no explanation or supporting evidence. She also says that the current administration is “more responsive to the plight of American workers” than the last one, which had record low unemployment and more people in the workforce than anytime in history. So tiresome.

Plus she notes, “It doesn’t help, of course, that the theater is also perceived as a playground of the rich.” Wonder where she gets that idea? Ticket prices to the average musical on Broadway cost around $150, and we’re not talking the usurious premium seats that go for double or more – at Hamilton, the woke show about the poor Caribbean immigrant, the best seats will set you back by around $1,000 each. “Perceived” as a place for the rich, huh? Why is she surprised about “the expense-account executives in the premium seats”? Why do premium seats even exist? The Broadway League’s annual audience survey found that the average annual household income of the Broadway theatergoer in the 2018-19 season was $261,000, and 81% of theatergoers over age 25 had college degrees. It also found that minorities other than East Asians were significantly underrepresented among audiences – so much for diversity. But who can afford a night out at those prices? The base ticket price has shot up way beyond the general rate of inflation.

This is not just about the producers. Those suffering actors that the writer talks about? In New York, the conditions laid by Equity for a return to live theater include a private car and driver to transport each actor to the theater and an individual hotel room for those not living alone, all paid for by the producer. Does this sound like people who are desperate to return to the stage? No producer can possibly afford those extra costs without raising prices even further, and it’s a safe bet that those conditions will become permanent even after the pandemic dies out.

Here in Tokyo, theater is booming, including at this moment such foreign titles as Waitress, Fiddler on the Roof, The Prom, In the Heights and Barnum – and that’s just the musicals. Most theaters are back to 100% seating, a situation that’s continued for months now with no corresponding rise in viral infections, albeit helped by universal mask wearing in the theater and other precautions. That’s despite the present state of emergency in force in Tokyo and surrounding areas.

In the rest of the country, I suspect the problem isn’t a lack of demand. It’s the lack of product. Open the theaters, and they will come.

Broadway shows, especially musicals, are built on a business model of milking the audience dry to pay exorbitant salaries to its unionized performers and staff. When the economy is doing well, as in the past several years (presided over by the President-who-must-not-be-named), Broadway thrives. But its high and growing costs have taken their toll. Because of the financial risk involved, most musicals now rely heavily on product regurgitated gratuitously from old films and preexisting music, using familiarity rather than creativity as its lure. It’s hard to say if musical theater is even worth saving in its present form.

I have an idea. How about lowering the ticket prices to something an average family can afford, at least for a limited time, say, 6-12 months? I think the writer might be shocked at how fast this gets audiences to return. That would of course mean an adjustment in salaries, which won’t make the unions happy. But isn’t something better than the nothing that, according to this writer, they’re getting at present? Lower prices would give new audiences access to the theater, and isn’t that a worthy goal? I’m not holding my breath.

One improvement would be to make the critics pay for their seats and line up for the big hits like the rest of us. That would bring them into the real world and, possibly, spare us from dumb articles like this.