Eugene David<br>...The One-Minute Pundit

Posted 6:38 AM by Gene

How apt that this week has seen two cultural reconstructions: President Babs's first concert of her latest farewell tour and the opening of the Chorus Line revival. America can only do reconstructions anymore; when it needs new and fresh it hauls out sixty-something divas, and relics from the seventies, and applies a fresh coating of paint and rouge, and hopes it can deceive itself into thinking it's new. It's like spraying a new-car smell in a 1953 Packard. Revivals can hardly work when so much of our culture has given up the ghost, having been so active in routing it.

P. S. Even the President's fans may be only so credulous:

The show's nadir comes with an ill-advised comic routine between Streisand and a George W. Bush impersonator, culminating with a duet on "Happy Days are Here Again." More than a few audience members made their displeasure with the mockery known.

Hey, for $750 they deserve the real thing. Then again, maybe they don't.

P. S. And speaking of stale:

Broadway isn't used to this: Every new season in recent memory has delivered at least one show (sometimes two or three) that's captured New Yorkers' imaginations - and plenty of their spending money.

"Jersey Boys," "Mamma Mia!" "Wicked," "Hairspray," "Chicago," "Rent," "The Producers," "Movin' Out," "Avenue Q," "Spamalot" - all burst out of the musical theater ghetto and lured to Broadway vast numbers of people who were not traditional theatergoers.

In so doing, these shows put the musical theater back into the mainstream of American entertainment culture: "The Producers" became the basis of a classic "Curb Your Enthusiasm" episode; cast recordings of "Mamma Mia!" and "Wicked" made the Billboard charts [which charts?]; "Avenue Q" led a parade of Broadway shows to Las Vegas [and drew so many puppet fans it closed]. [Overemphasis added]

But this year it's different because -- maybe classics aren't what they used to be?