Show of hands – who out there has read about the new play Irishtown at Irish Rep? How about the musical All The World’s a Stage at Keen Company? I ask because I saw both of these shows a couple of weeks ago and having seen little in the way of features or reviews – at the latter, I asked Keen’s artistic director when the show would open only to be told it had, three days earlier – I wondered what was at play.
Playbill and Broadway World’s review round-ups show only three or four reviews for each show, even though they say they are updated as reviews come in. Review aggregator “Did They Like It?” shows nothing on either, though they still feature Off-Broadway reviews for Blue Man Group, which has closed, as well as summaries of English and Prayer for the French Republic in their Off-Broadway runs, even though both later reached Broadway. Show Score, an audience-based aggregator does acknowledge these shows, but with just over 50 opinions formed for All The World and only six for Irishtown.
I raise this because it’s representative of what’s happened to attention for some Off-Broadway shows, those that are neither produced by large organizations like The Public, MTC or Atlantic, or newer trend-setting companies like Bushwick Star or Ars Nova. There’s no meaningful Off-Broadway coverage in the Daily News or the Post unless there’s a big name attached, and the Times’s attention is clearly variable beyond Broadway.
Having long ago decided to forego the critical route, I mention these shows simply because I saw them and I’m glad to have done so. In each case, I was motivated to attend for different reasons: with Irishtown, because it features a friend of four decades in its cast of five and because a comedy seemed like a good idea these days; with All The World, I’d read that it involved a high school drama competition, and school theatre is a particular interest of mine.
It concerns me that these shows are so unremarked upon, because it suggests that there’s less interest by the larger media in drawing a spotlight to work on smaller stages, that what was once a lively feature and critical array of thought and opinion has stratified and left a gaping hole. Admittedly all media (including independent media) struggles with budgets and can only allocate so many resources, but where does that leave new work that not only needs support while on New York stages, but also needs to recognition that may allow it to land on stages around the company. With casts of five for Irishtown and four (plus four musicians) for All The World, these are the types of works that might find favor on regional stages, or at colleges, if only people manage to read about them.
I don’t single out these two works in some stealth way of circumventing my own critical silence, but merely as exemplars, because I managed to see them at a time when so much attention is being directed to the welter of Broadway openings that characterize every April. I am entirely aware that there’s works I’ve missed and perhaps not even heard of, because I have limits on both time and stamina, and because I must make choices about what might land in my own paid writing. With no particular outlet to discuss this topic, I turn to this long Facebook post, even as I think about whether starting to blog again more regularly might be useful in supporting the theatrical ecosystem.
I have no bold conclusion nor specific exhortation, except to say that I’m concerned for the health of the Off-Broadway sector (and some will point out that Keen Company, in a 99-seat house technically adheres to the perhaps outdated definition of Off-Off-Broadway) if no one knows the work is out there – and when produced by fully professional companies, equally deserving of attention and assessment, to take its place in the theatrical conversation. And this post itself is meant as a conversation starter.
UPDATES: Five days after I posted this to Facebook, the NY Times posted a review of All The World’s a Stage, in its penultimate week. The critic described it as “an unassuming, 100-minute marvel.” 16 days after this was posted to Facebook, the NY Times posted a Critic’s Notebook that included Irishtown.
[Left: Elizabeth Stanley, Eliza Pagelle, Matt Rodin and Jon-Michael Reese in “All The World’s a Stage” by Adam Gwon at Keen Company, photo by Richard Termine. Right: Kevin Oliver Lynch, Saiorse Monica Jackson and Kate Burton in “Irishtown” by Nicola Murphy Dubey at Irish Repertory Theatre, photo by Carol Rosegg]
