Okay, You Jerks, Let's Talk About Rent

There are times in my life when I envy people who don’t have a Newsfeed full of theater friends.

One of them is…anytime any musical is broadcast live on television.

Oh boy, do things get toxic quickly.

Now, before you jump down my throat, let me say this—

I think it’s totally fair to have criticism of a production of any kind, especially one with the budget and resources most of these televised productions have.

I was one of the people commenting on how it’s totally inexcusable not to have understudies for a show this big.

(To be fair, I’m seeing statuses like “Why didn’t they just do it with Roger in a wheelchair?” and while those of us who’ve seen the show done a million times might have LOVED that, I think we’re grossly underestimating the imagination of most of the rest of America.  They don’t do these things for the Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet fan club, they’re doing them for closeted gay teens in Iowa who were born the same year Book of Mormon came out.  Conceptual is not on the table.)

For the most part though, I really enjoyed the show.  And I’m not a Pollyanna about this stuff.  I still can’t get over how much Sound of Music Live looked like an episode of Days of Our Lives.

You can’t deny that these productions have gotten better and better as they’ve worked out the kinks.  Grease and Hairspray were both fantastic—not perfect, no, but—Okay, let me ask this—

Are some of you under the impression that the theater you do is…perfect?

This is where things get ugly.

It seems like the people who jump on the nasty bandwagon (and yes, I’ve been one of them) fall into a few different categories.

1.       You have the people who I truly believe tune in, watch for five seconds, then immediately hop on social media and say “This sucks.”  These people lead joyless and unfulfilled lives and they’re determined to thrust their morbidity on the rest of us.

2.       You have the people who love to let us all know “THEY’RE NOT WATCHING.”  Thanks for the update.  I was sitting on my laptop just waiting to see if you were watching.

These people actually aren’t the worst, because aside from the one status they post about the whole thing, that’s all we have to hear from them.  Much worse are these people—

1.     The ones who gave up doing theater years ago but still think they can have an opinion on anything theater-related from now until the day they die.  “When I played Benny in high school—“ Oh my god, sit down, Peter, nobody likes you.

 2.   The girls who not only think they should play Maureen, but that if they did play Maureen, they'd be the best Mauren that ever graced the stage.  Listen up, Lucille, you would be a TERRIBLE Maureen.
3.  The ones who still do theater, but—

Okay, we need to talk about #3 for a second, and I’m talking about more than just a bullet point.

I really believe that one of the reasons we all go insane whenever one of these broadcasts happens is because we’re inundated with people we don’t think are talented talking about how untalented they think other people are, and because society dictates that we’re not allowed to just come out and say—

MAYBE TINASHE ISN’T GOOD BUT NEITHER ARE YOU, ASSHOLE.

We just stew and stew and stew and post a passive-aggressive status about people complaining hoping against hope that the person we’re thinking of shows up in the comments section so we can bait them into an argument where we can finally come right out and tell them how much they sucked in that production of Kiss Me, Kate that we saw them in.

The weird thing is, people who are actually talented don’t seem to mind these broadcasts at all.  If you go on Twitter, most celebrities, including Broadway stars, were cheering the people onstage.

Now, I’m not dumb, I realize that’s career-driven, but I also don’t think it’s entirely false either.

Laura Benanti doesn’t need to tear down Jordan Fisher, because she knows she’s good, and she can appreciate that doing a live broadcast of a musical is hard because she’s done it.

So, like, maybe she knows something we don’t?

And while we’re on the subject, for the love of god, please stop saying “Why can’t they get Broadway people?”

I am a pop culture snob and you do not have to convince me that Mario is a has-been, but at the end of the day, he still has more Instagram followers than Christine Ebersole and if you think that doesn’t make a difference in the ratings, then you’ve been living under a rock since Obama was President and is there any room under there, because I’d like to crawl in next to you.

You can't say "Why can't they get Broadway people?" when "Broadway People" now includes Lisa Rinna and Usher.  Broadway does stunt casting.  They've been doing it for awhile.  It's not some hallowed place where only true artists get to perform.  Give up the dream, everybody.  Omarosa will be playing Velma Kelly before you know it.

I know none of us want to believe that a strictly A-list Broadway person is still below a D-List celebrity in terms of bankability, but unless you’re talking about Ben Platt, that’s probably reality.

So that’s #3—People who I’ve personally seen choke in front of an audience of three people in a church basement doing “The Matchmaker” who suddenly think they’d do a much better job than Vanessa Hudgens.  These people also tend to be ultra-sensitive, so it’s funny to me that they’re so negative when hiding behind a keyboard but cry at a callback if the director doesn’t smile at them.

Warning to Those People:  The world is getting meaner, not nicer, so chances are if you’re a Keyboard Warrior, you’re going to get a lashing if you get all snarky during Avenue Q Live streamed on Netflix and ohmygodIjustrealizedthatsprobablyathingthatsgoingtohappen.

…Moving on.

The final group are the people I mentioned in the beginning of all this.

The “Let’s Just Say It’s Amazing No Matter What” People.

Here’s the thing—

We don’t need to be negative if it’s just to be bitchy for the sake of getting Likes, but we also—and this is crucial—need to always champion critical thinking.

I would have loved to have seen in-depth discussions about how a watershed show like Rent has aged over the years, the push-and-pull of the show’s desire to be both gritty and colorful and how the production handled that balance—

A few people commented on how good the design was.

Everybody, the design was amazing.  Don’t just toss that off like it’s easy to do.  Aesthetically, the show was a knockout, and that’s not nothing.  It’s just that we’d rather talk about the note somebody missed during the big number, but THEATER PEOPLE YOU ARE BETTER THAN THAT.

You’re the same people who talk about how valuable your stage managers are and then watch a three-hour production without once saying “Wow, this is a huge technical accomplishment even if Valentina falls off the stage and gets eaten by dogs.”

We have got to do better about how we receive these productions—and I’m talking to both sides.

It's funny that we criticize television producers for doing things to get ratings when we tailor our criticism online to get reactions from our friends like "Oh my god I'm just here for your commentary."

What is that if not a watered-down version of a ratings-grab?

There is a productive way to criticize not just theater, but movies and television and music, and it is becoming endanger if not extinct.

I’m not expecting Harold Bloom-level writing on Facebook, but can we aspire to something better than “This sucks?”

And can we get there before Les Miz Presented by Home Depot?

Only time will tell.

Until then, hug your understudies.