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Nearly every exchange in David Thompson and Sharon Washingtons book involves a discussion of the city.
The city is pretty much the only character, forcing everyone else into supporting roles.
But the New York you see onstage is being so thoroughly overvenerated that it barely resembles a real place.
(Baudrillard would have a wild time at the theater with this one.)
What is this glorious Xanadu?
Is this all related to Eric Adamssemoji-based tourism campaign?
With that level of talent involved, what could go wrong?
A frustratingly large amount.
With that I could relate.
But it has no momentum.
The problem is that moment, like so many other spectacular sequences, comes with little storytelling justification.
(I started to worry one of them would suggest dropping by a 1946 version of Magnolia Bakery.)
Everyones here to play the hits, musically and municipally.
There is nothing wrong with a little New York boosterism.
This show has more than a little and a frustrating lack of critical perspective.
or, at the very least, with more grit.
Give me some rats, some City Hall cronyism; evoke the stink oftrash on an August day.
There are acknowledgments of tensions among racial and ethnic groups and neighborhoods (Everybody lives here.
And everybodys natural enemy lives here.
Theres a little swearing, like a neighbor shouting Shut the fuck up!
For all the musicals insistence on the citys vitality, its glassy-eyed and complacent.
It looks to old tropes and standards.
But of all people, they can afford to buy into the idea that New Yorks a cuddly utopia.
New York, New Yorkis at the St. James Theatre.
