I see where the Damn Yankees revival is going ahead next spring with Neil Patrick Harris taking the role of the devil. When the Broadway transfer was announced a year ago after the show’s Washington DC run (here are my comments at the time), I had the impression that the cast would transfer as well. I had been especially excited to see Jordan Donica, a terrific performer who is ready for stardom, as the young baseball sensation. That is not to be, but I’m not surprised that the producers opted for a star in the devil’s role. Harris is a great choice.
The NY Times article announcing the revival states that the baseball player, “a white Washington Senators fan in the original, is now Black [sic]”. I can only presume the writer has never seen the show. The character was not assigned any particular race in the 1955 original and could (and has) been played by actors of any ethnicity. The story is about an old man who sells his soul to the devil to become a young, virile batter in order to beat the hated Yankees – in other words, a baseball version of the Faust legend. It’s not about black or white but about human nature, a fantasy that any man of any race can understand and play. I’ve seen it here in Tokyo with an all-Japanese cast, and it works just fine.
The revival, however, will specify that the character not only be black but “motivated in his quest by the racial discrimination that limited his father’s baseball career”. The article states that the creators seek a version that “better reflects professional baseball as it exists in the United States today” – which in their minds evidently includes racial discrimination. The show will also feature illegal drugs, which is also apparently part of the black experience “as it exists…today”.
The show is not about baseball; it’s about the human heart. What they’re doing is taking a story with universal human motives and turning it into yet another forum for hectoring us about the evils of white America. Who do they see as their audience? Classics like Damn Yankees, The Pajama Game (by the same authors), Hello, Dolly! and more are endlessly revivable precisely because they deal with broad human themes that can be played by anyone anywhere. Black shows are defeated by their narrow vision – no hopes for a Japanese revival of this version. Surely black lives have more to them than this.
The article also mentions sexism (“baked into aspects of the libretto”), presumably referring to the housewives in the opening number as well as the old man’s wife. (There is also a female sports reporter and a temptress sent to seduce the player, who was considered the lead in the 1950s production.) There’s only so much they can do with the book in that sense, though one idea would be to keep the 1950s setting, solving their problems in an instant. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a transgender character thrown into the team or a female playing the team manager, though I shouldn’t give them any ideas.
As I noted previously, Broadway’s “cost structure will demand a longer run, meaning inevitably a heavy reliance on tourists and non-NY audiences who may not want to be lectured on how racist they are”. The Times article suggests that the budget could go as high as a staggering $21.5 million, much worse than I had imagined. I would normally be first in line for this Golden Age musical, but I think I’ll wait and see first what they’ve done with it. I wish them luck.
