Tony's Recap: Nothing for it but a ragtime tune...

I'm sure you've all been waiting with bated breath.

Despite not being that excited about the Tony's, I still found myself running home from church to hurry, mow the lawn and leap onto the couch moments before it started. So it's still tucked down in there even with all the disappointment of the season. But I digress.

(my personal opinions only, as always)

Overall, I really felt this year's season - at least the musicals - were very mediocre, and that was heavily reflected throughout the Tony's. I felt like the actual awards show itself went smoothly enough, or at least as it ever does, but that there just wasn't anything to be excited about there. I did love the opening bit with host Sean Hayes who played the piano and mixed in classical music with Broadway showtunes. That was really cool. And the rest of the opening was fine, ending with quite the Green Day number that was too long. But there was no crossing fingers, there was no pulling for an underdog, there was nothing. And after watching the performances, I don't feel ashamed about that because this season just looked very...blah. Blah is a solid word for this.

Now for any interested, here's the breakdown:
The Design Awards Conundrum
I'm still ashamed they did away with handing the design awards out during the actual telecast (opting to do them online instead beforehand). Say what you will about making the Tony's mainstream - the Tonys will never be mainstream (at least not for long) and as a theatre lover I feel the designers who are so much a part of the work just get completely jipped. 5 second sound bites. That's all you get folks for winning a Tony award after all those hours and hours of designing a show. Nonetheless, the show still barely clocked in at exactly three hours and the Tony's don't get the pleasure of going over, so they had to cut something. Still, it's a shame.

The Plays:

Unusual for me, after listening to the plot descriptions of the plays (who also don't get enough airtime), I was more interested in them than the musicals. Sadly, Red will not be extending past it's allotted summer run, despite winning the big prize, several design awards and supporting actor. Another one that caught my ear was Next Fall.

The Highlight
We get it, we get it, Matthew Morrison and Lea Michelle from Glee are going to perform. We get it. Please. Not every commericial break.
Nonetheless, this was actually the highlight of the show for me. Wow! I mean, I prefer the traditional version of "All I Need is the Girl" but I was so happy to see one of my favorite showtunes pulled out that it didn't matter. It was still handled with excellence. And Lea did well with the very difficult "Don't Rain on My Parade." Very, very nice guys.

Distracting Random Question:
Is Daniel Radcliffe really that short? Or is Katie Holmes really that tall?

The Musicals (Now with video! Oo!):

I have to admit, I no longer feel bad that I chose not to keep up with this past season because I no longer feel there was a reason I should've. The four in contention were Million Dollar Quartet, Memphis, American Idiot and Fela!.

I was super excited to see what Fela! would bring to the table and quite frankly was left very confused by the end result. I mean, it's a cool concept, based off a true story of a man named Fela in Nigeria that used his music for civil rights but... is there actually a storyline in the show? Is it just his music? Is it his music at all? I have no idea what's going on! Though I'm glad it won for choreography, because that was some seriously awesome work.

Million Dollar Quartet (inspired by the one-time recording of Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley & Carl Perkins) also left me sadly cold. Again...cool idea and wowIhadnoideathateverevenhappened, but it basically appeared to be another jukebox musical. Except for the opening song bit of "Down by the Riverside," I was bored.

Memphis which actually ran away with the Best Musical prize hopefully merely picked a terrible song for the telecast because the lyrics were pretty awful.
Case in point:
"And if you listen to the beat and hear what's in your soul, you'll never let anyone steal your rock and roll, nananana, nananananana, nananana...."

American Idiot actually was the only one I had any vague interest after watching all four but that's possibly because there was entirely too much going on and my tv was incredibly pixelated during the entire performance because of all of their flashing lights.

The Revivals:
Um...Catherine Zeta Jones? I have no words for her head-jerking, confusing performance. I'm so lost. If that's her typical performance...how did she win exactly?
Christiane Noll put everyone else to shame. Actually the two-minute piece she performed for Ragtime put just about everyone to shame but I'm slightly biased (it's my favorite).
Sadly, there was no Finian's Rainbow and Promises, Promises performed a strictly choreography-only piece that was cute but completely misused Sean Hayes.

I was wondering if my having a lack of love these past few years simply had to do with not having one to root for. And I'm sure that's partially it. But there's usually at least one big contender, and I just felt like this year just kind of scraped by. I know, I know, it was "the biggest year for profits in Broadway history" but that doesn't mean it was good.

So I was wondering if it was just me. But I loved all the songs that were well-written ("Back to Before," "All I Need...", "Don't Rain..."). In fact, those songs shined ten times brighter because of what I felt they were held in comparison to.

Any thoughts? Am I stuck on standards or are these really that ill-written? I feel like Fela! just may not be served well in a three-minute format, but maybe I'm wrong. I would love to discuss with someone (here or otherwise).