Theatre Review: Bad Times

The inevitably disastrous new musical by Twyla Tharp, The Times They Are A-Changin' has finally opened at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre. Among many other things, I collect Playbills from flop musicals. I can only hope for the sake of the American musical that this one can soon be assigned to that category.

I was completely horrified, as were all of my musical-enthusiast friends, when I first heard about this project. How ironic that Twyla Tharp and Bob Dylan, two innovators who energized their respective art forms, now exemplify so much that is wrong with current trends in musical theatre.

As a composer/lyricist, I know first-hand that writing
American folk-ballad melodies is FAR easier than creating a clean, original, single-line melody of the kind that once typified Broadway. Indeed, Bob Dylan's genius was similar to that of French singer Jacques Brel: taking a standard folksong form and turning it into a medium for brilliantly conceived lyrics. Dylan's genius was words, not music.

Why didn't someone tell Twyla and Bob that intimate coffeehouse tunes will not sustain a big, two-hour live theatre performance? And without the labor of writing songs,
couldn't Twyla at least have produced a book with interesting commentary on Dylan's origins and his contributions to American song? We are given instead a goopy "psychological" interpretation (complete with circus folk) that rings of Fellini - if Fellini were stripped bare of his talent and vision. Most ironically of all, there are few interesting dance numbers even though the show's creator is best know for her work in that medium.

Twyla Tharp seems to have forgotten that brilliant works are most often conceived and created in a fury of inspiration. Lacking that, she has taken the more traveled path: attempting to defrost and reheat a previous success (Movin' Out) and employing a committee of experts to help. The most sobering realization of all is that this is precisely the direction that movies were taking a few years ago. One only need look at the first-run films in any Multiplex to see the sleep-inducing result. They must appeal to everyone, and therefore appeal to no one. I fervently hope that this will not happen to the theatre, as well.

I can't explain Dylan's cooperation with this mediocre project. Was it megalomania? Lack of understanding of the musical medium? Boredom? A need for ready cash? Ongoing injuries from the motorcycle accident? To see a great American poet reduced to such an inferior project is most upsetting of all.

I have a longstanding disdain for jukebox musicals and I await a return of standards and originality in American musical theatre. For some reason, however, this Dylan project has bothered me more than Jersey Boys, Movin' Out, and the rest of the dull line-up of usual suspects. Maybe this is because, unlike Frankie Avalon or Billy Joel, Dylan truly was a transformative figure in music. This dreadful formula that I call "musical theatre by numbers" cheapens even Dylan while it continues to damage the theatre in general.