Andrew Lloyd Webber is American theater’s favourite punching bag.
It’s simple to hate on the enormously wealthy British lord whose musicals, regardless of their business success, are regularly thought of among the many emptiest and most confounding reveals within the canon. He’s written musicals about Jesus Christ, Cinderella and anthropomorphic trains, and so they’ve all attracted a point of vital hostility.
So when did Lloyd Webber get cool?
A string of latest, drastically completely different revivals of Lloyd Webber’s most well-known reveals are dragging his work into the current — and provoking his many detractors to reappraise the divisive composer.
On the West End, Rachel Zegler is main a youthful, sexier “Evita” whose Broadway switch appears inevitable. A current revival of “Cats” set within the downtown ballroom scene is rumored to return to New York quickly. “Sunset Boulevard” simply accomplished its celebrated run that gained its Pussycat Doll leading lady a Tony. And earlier this month, Cynthia Erivo assumed the title function in a one-night-only efficiency of “Jesus Christ Superstar” that was lauded by the composer himself.
And the Phantom of the Opera is already haunting New York City once more in “Masquerade,” an immersive new tackle “Phantom,” previously the longest-running Broadway present earlier than its 2023 closure.
The current revivals have succeeded artistically as a result of they’re “fairly radical reimaginings from the original text,” mentioned Amanda Eubanks Winkler, a professor and musicologist who leads Rutgers University’s division of music.
“It’s taking, weirdly, this avant-garde theatrical toolkit and applying it to the most mainstream popular theater,” mentioned Eubanks Winkler, who’s additionally writing a guide on Lloyd Webber’s work.
These revivals are difficult expectations of what depth a piece from Andrew Lloyd Webber can obtain — even a chunk about dancing cats — although, for essentially the most half, the rating and textual content stay unchanged. Maybe the putting profundity these new interpretations have uncovered has been there all alongside, instructed John Snelson, an affiliate lecturer in musical theater at Goldsmiths, University of London, who wrote a guide on Lloyd Webber.
“What has changed is an understanding, or shall we say an appreciation, of the type of musical theater that Andrew Lloyd Webber has put together,” he mentioned.
Tastemakers and theater snobs have lengthy turned up their noses up at Lloyd Webber’s “megamusicals,” as soon as a pejorative time period for the composer’s large productions and their lavish setpieces, operatic scores and a basic disconnect from actuality. Even in largely optimistic evaluations, critics lowered his work to “mindless fun” with out an “idea in its head.”
With a Lloyd Webber musical, Snelson mentioned, “what you get is sensory overload. It’s a big show that just throws the kitchen sink at it, and sometimes, your senses are left almost not able to take it all in.”
These new interpretations trim the surplus, leaving solely the scores intact. There was no grand staircase for Norma Desmond to descend within the new “Sunset Boulevard,” nor was there feline face paint to be discovered at “Cats: The Jellicle Ball.” The sparse staging of these productions is a far cry from the unique “Phantom,” which famously opened with a large chandelier swinging over its viewers set to a pipe organ.
When the rating is powerful and its stars can efficiently scale it, new Lloyd Webber revivals can soar. In “Evita,” Zegler delivers “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” from an precise out of doors balcony to a crowd of adoring, real-life Zegler followers. Nicole Scherzinger earned a nightly standing ovation by belting “As If We Never Said Goodbye” on an empty stage to an invisible Cecil B. DeMille.
“This music is eternal,” mentioned Zhailon Levingston, who co-directed the acclaimed revival of “Cats” final yr. “It can live through reimaginings, reinvention, new audiences, this new sociopolitical moment we’re in.”
The reinventions have even gained over skeptical followers of Lloyd Webber’s originals. When Kathryn Yelinek, an creator, librarian and devoted “phan” of the unique “Phantom,” visited his new off-Broadway lair in “Masquerade,” she “wasn’t entirely convinced” it might work: “I just hope that this new production doesn’t ruin it in some way,” she remembered pondering.
It took two performances to promote her. Without spoiling an excessive amount of about this very secretive present, which started previews final week, Yelinek interacted with a personality she’s cherished for many years in a approach that might’ve been not possible within the unique manufacturing.
“It had to have been one of the meaningful experiences in a theater that I have had,” she mentioned. “It just blew me away.”
These new productions dare to ask a query, posed by Levingston, that might see a few of Lloyd Webber’s harshest critics sooner ascend to the Heaviside Layer than dare to reply it: “What does an Andrew Lloyd Webber score have to say about who we are right now?”
Beneath the bombast, political and social themes are “very much built into Lloyd Webber shows,” Snelson mentioned.
The new “Cats” forged was solely composed of queer and trans folks of shade and ballroom legends whose unflappable pleasure and resilience felt particularly poignant in a much less literal interpretation of the fabric, Eubanks Winkler mentioned.
“The material is speaking to the times today differently,” Levingston mentioned.
And “Evita” was already a couple of quasi-fascist first woman so charming she’s capable of win folks over at the same time as she’s squashing them. The timing of this “Evita,” which is “commenting on celebrity culture, the cult of personality and how that’s used to promote authoritarian leaders,” makes it upsettingly related, Eubanks Winkler mentioned.
“I’ve never thought of him as a less intellectual composer,” Yelinek mentioned. “I’ve certainly heard other people say that. I’ve heard the critics say it.”
Many of Lloyd Webber’s detractors consider his musicals have about the identical depth as a scrape. That supposed emptiness could appeal to administrators, Eubanks Winkler mentioned, who see holes in plot or character growth as alternatives to indicate off their fashion or mine for brand new relevance.
“There’s an openness to them that allows for his own creative interventions,” she mentioned.
Perhaps that’s what motivated British director Jamie Lloyd, who helmed the brand new “Sunset Boulevard” and “Evita.” He’s dusted off the musicals for the twenty first century by leaning closely on big screens and meta celeb casting: Scherzinger could have been an unlikely option to play has-been Desmond, however after years spent judging fellow B- and C-listers on “The Masked Singer,” her casting felt impressed. And Zegler, at solely 24, has already starred in Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story” remake, a “Hunger Games” prequel and a Disney tentpole. Like the scheming Eva Perón, she’s completed a headspinning quantity in her brief life, changing into an idol within the course of.
“There’s this interesting slippage between the character and the person playing the role,” Eubanks Winkler mentioned.
Even with out the favor of critics, Lloyd Webber is without doubt one of the most profitable composers of his period. “Sunset,” “Phantom,” “Evita” and “Cats” have all gained the Tony for finest musical. “Phantom” and “Cats” have each held the title for the longest-running present on Broadway, and so they’re each among the many highest-grossing musicals of all time.
But when “Cats: The Jellicle Ball” opened final yr, Lloyd Webber wanted the stateside win. His final new musical, “Bad Cinderella,” closed lower than three months after it opened, marking the primary time in 44 years that his identify was lacking from a Broadway marquee. The 2019 movie adaptation of “Cats,” regardless of its Taylor Swift cameo, was widely considered against the law towards humanity and feline-kind. His inventory, critically and commercially, was low.
With the critical and commercial success of “Sunset Boulevard,” there’s a transparent urge for food for remixed Lloyd Webber onstage. Now there are murmurs that “Cats: The Jellicle Ball,” which earned raves final yr, may return to New York. And “Masquerade’s” preliminary run is proscribed, however hardcore phans have already purchased up nearly all of the tickets for its first two months.
It solely took a couple of revivals for the Lloyd Webber holdouts to be satisfied that possibly there’s one thing to his success.
“There’s this perception that ‘Cats’ is crappy, schlocky, commercial — or ‘Sunset,’ or ‘Phantom,’ or ‘Evita,’ maybe,” Eubanks Winkler mentioned. “But then this director comes along and proves us wrong. Is it Jamie Lloyd’s fabulosity? Is it Lloyd Webber’s fabulosity? Is there a special alchemy that makes it transcend these notions of being schlocky?”
Maybe “Cats” resonates extra deeply when its stars really feel like people (“And who doesn’t want a second chance at life?” Yelinek puzzled). Maybe “Evita” makes extra sense now that authoritarianism shouldn’t be a lot creeping as it’s flooding on a regular basis life.
But the highly effective music was at all times there, and so was one thing of a soul.
“He wears several hearts on his sleeve,” Snelson mentioned of Lloyd Webber. “It does produce quirks, and it does produce oddities, and it does produce some unfortunate things. But hey, when it works, it really does have that extra integrated something.”
And for that, his critics should give the composer some credit score.