Monday, December 11, 2006

On Broadway: "Mary Poppins" Beats "Lion King"

For the first time, "Mary Poppins" has outgrossed "The Lion King" on Broadway. And last week "The Color Purple" saw black by recouping its $11 million budget. Now next week will hopefully see a big boost for "Srping Awakening." And the classic British anti-war play "Journey's End" is coming to Broadway in February. It opened in the UK in 2004 btu was seen as too controversial in light of the invasion of Iraq to come to New York. Now, obviously, the time is right. I saw the revival in London and enjoyed it immensely, but it's a very traditional, even old-fashioned play with nary a surprise in sight. Also, it was helped enormously by being staged in a tiny, tiny house that has no equivalent on Broadway. And it ended with a scroll of the dead from World War I on a scrim of some sort. Will the Broadway production list the 3000+ men and women from the US who will have died in Iraq by the time it opens?

No comments: