Theater: Shuffle Along: an earnest show that needs a diet
Shuffle Along is a much-anticipated musical, paying homage to one of the first Broadway shows to feature and all-black cast yet successfully market to a mainstream (largely white) audience. The historical importance is recounted in this fascinating New York Times article. The current show opened in April, with a powerhouse group of performers, directors, choreographers, and historians all involved. Audra McDonald, possibly the most awarded Broadway performer these days, signed on. Yet it is closing soon, earlier than anyone anticipated. Why?
I really wanted to like all this, but now I am reminded of my response to Twelve Years a Slave: important, critical for our coming to terms with our slavery past, yet not all that great a movie. Same with Shuffle Along. The first thing to know is that this is not a revival of the original, even though that is a categorization the producers would have liked for this year's Tony Awards (so it wouldn't have to compete with Hamilton). The original, like many of the old 1920's shows, had a flimsy plot, silly characters, and was little more than a framework for the singing and dancing (if you want to see some of this, take a look at any of the 1930's Warner film musicals, e.g. 42nd Street [n.b. choreographer Busby Berkeley is God]). In addition, there were stage conventions of the time that would be offensive to a modern audience, e.g. black performers corking their faces to appear more black, just like Al Jolson and almost every white song and dance guy did in the era. So, the producers of the new Shuffle Along made a musical much like 42nd Street, that is a musical about the making of a musical, so they could tell the story of how this came about, and just put the good (and inoffensive) parts of the musical onstage (e.g. the hit song "I'm Just Wild about Harry"). In doing this the creators join a long list of backstage musicals like Gypsy and A Chorus Line. In theory, this is a cool idea. We could learn about what it was like to be a black businessman in that era, what the performers were like, and still see and hear the dancing and singing that made Shuffle Along a hit, running 500 shows despite its newfangled jazz score and all-black cast.
The trouble is that this ambitious hagiographic agenda just packed too much into the show. With four co-creators to portray (only composer Eubie Blake was a familiar name to me) plus a female lead in the show, there were too many stories to tell, and none emerged as a meaningful character, despite some very cool stories. I would have loved, for example, to have seen more focus on the co-creator who, disgusted with America, moved to Liberia for a couple years. Successful backstage musicals usually focus on 1-2 characters (think Mama Rose in Gypsy) or else keep the story really lean (A Chorus Line). Shuffle Along does neither, with subplots, extra characters, and diversions galore. There were many historical updates, and mini-biosketches to make sure we know exactly what happened to all of these historic figures (e.g. at the end they tell us when they died, and in what city). They did address the blackface issue directly, which was great. Sadly, this overstuffed book mad me not really care about very much of it, and I mostly sat waiting for the song and dance numbers. These were well staged and dynamic, with one particularly great blues number. Megastar Audra McDonald did not appear at my performance, so perhaps that would have changed my opinion a bit, but I doubt it. The irony is, that in their painstaking homage to a path-breaking moment in racial equality, the creators of Shuffle Along have created another schlubby musical just like those white shows of the 1920's/1930's--one where we put up with the plot and wait for the songs. At one point in Shuffle Along a skeptical 1920's white producer says to the show's creators: "They won't remember you. Your show will be forgotten". He was wrong then, but I am afraid his words would apply to this new Shuffle Along. Not much progress if you ask me.
I really wanted to like all this, but now I am reminded of my response to Twelve Years a Slave: important, critical for our coming to terms with our slavery past, yet not all that great a movie. Same with Shuffle Along. The first thing to know is that this is not a revival of the original, even though that is a categorization the producers would have liked for this year's Tony Awards (so it wouldn't have to compete with Hamilton). The original, like many of the old 1920's shows, had a flimsy plot, silly characters, and was little more than a framework for the singing and dancing (if you want to see some of this, take a look at any of the 1930's Warner film musicals, e.g. 42nd Street [n.b. choreographer Busby Berkeley is God]). In addition, there were stage conventions of the time that would be offensive to a modern audience, e.g. black performers corking their faces to appear more black, just like Al Jolson and almost every white song and dance guy did in the era. So, the producers of the new Shuffle Along made a musical much like 42nd Street, that is a musical about the making of a musical, so they could tell the story of how this came about, and just put the good (and inoffensive) parts of the musical onstage (e.g. the hit song "I'm Just Wild about Harry"). In doing this the creators join a long list of backstage musicals like Gypsy and A Chorus Line. In theory, this is a cool idea. We could learn about what it was like to be a black businessman in that era, what the performers were like, and still see and hear the dancing and singing that made Shuffle Along a hit, running 500 shows despite its newfangled jazz score and all-black cast.
The trouble is that this ambitious hagiographic agenda just packed too much into the show. With four co-creators to portray (only composer Eubie Blake was a familiar name to me) plus a female lead in the show, there were too many stories to tell, and none emerged as a meaningful character, despite some very cool stories. I would have loved, for example, to have seen more focus on the co-creator who, disgusted with America, moved to Liberia for a couple years. Successful backstage musicals usually focus on 1-2 characters (think Mama Rose in Gypsy) or else keep the story really lean (A Chorus Line). Shuffle Along does neither, with subplots, extra characters, and diversions galore. There were many historical updates, and mini-biosketches to make sure we know exactly what happened to all of these historic figures (e.g. at the end they tell us when they died, and in what city). They did address the blackface issue directly, which was great. Sadly, this overstuffed book mad me not really care about very much of it, and I mostly sat waiting for the song and dance numbers. These were well staged and dynamic, with one particularly great blues number. Megastar Audra McDonald did not appear at my performance, so perhaps that would have changed my opinion a bit, but I doubt it. The irony is, that in their painstaking homage to a path-breaking moment in racial equality, the creators of Shuffle Along have created another schlubby musical just like those white shows of the 1920's/1930's--one where we put up with the plot and wait for the songs. At one point in Shuffle Along a skeptical 1920's white producer says to the show's creators: "They won't remember you. Your show will be forgotten". He was wrong then, but I am afraid his words would apply to this new Shuffle Along. Not much progress if you ask me.
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