Documentaries have a habit of capturing the zeitgeist of a particular entity and there is hardly an entity like Broadway theater. On Broadway is from director Oren Jacoby and chronicles the constant ebbs and flows of success and failures of The Great White Way in the last 8 decades. Featuring a who’s who of talking heads that add priceless insight into the history and little-known facts and facets of the most unique of American institutions, the Broadway musical and dramatic theater.
Theater puts a mirror up to our society and in On Broadway that is captured impeccably over the last decades and how it is as much part of the fabric of New York City as the New York Yankees.
The documentary does a stellar job of not only introducing the persons who contributed to defining the art form, but also the men and women behind the scenes—from playwrights to building owners who fostered the theater district in Manhattan—but also it expands and looks at the piercing influence of London’s West End that produced products such as Cats, Nicholas Nickleby, Phantom of the Opera, Annie to Mamma Mia, Fences, Rent and other important productions that moved the needle in society and others that served an importance that is still being felt today and will not be more clearly defined until much, much later in terms of its final impact on our collective being.
There’s Harold Prince, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and a bevy of those who pushed the needle when the theater world of America needed the push. The way in which director Jacoby incorporates the history of Broadway and how it is cyclical is utterly fascinating. It also helps frame what is going on currently with The Great White Way and how it’s been shut down due to the pandemic for 17 months. This documentary’s timing could not be better in that Broadway is set to re-open in September and if nothing else, it’s a reminder of why we utterly adore the live theater and sends the anticipation meter through the red for when theaters open up once again.
Jacoby also (smartly) doesn’t hit you over the head with the Covid-19 news and repeatedly does not. It would be tempting given the role the pandemic has played in each of our lives over the better part of two years. Instead, he focuses his spotlight on the triumphs of Broadway’s past as an indicator of how the theater world will rebound when the calendar switches from August 2021 to September 2021.
Back in the 70s, not only was Broadway on the verge of bankruptcy, but the entire city of New York was facing a similar financial fate. It is unreal how quickly the theater world lost its audiences as theater attendance declined astronomically and rapidly. Not only did Broadway survive the 70s and its financial turbulence, but it forced it to redefine itself and come back stronger than ever.
Broadway, sadly, has experience with a virus that takes so many before it’s their time and that too is documented with just the right touch in Jacoby’s film. The AIDS crisis hit the theater world especially hard at first before it hit middle America. The manner in which the documentarian chronicles that struggle and how it also produced some of the most stunning artistic theatrical work to ever grace a stage (Angels in America comes to mind) is mind-blowing. Most keenly know how the AIDS epidemic altered the landscape of the theater world. Rarely has a doc possessed a director who more impeccably framed the issue so enlighteningly heartbreaking and impeccably insightful.
Also, the conversations with some of those who are creating some of today’s most titanic theatrical wizardry add priceless layers to the cinematic experience that will have those theatrical juices pumping, from Alexandra Billings, Julie Taymor, David Henry Hwang, Oskar Eustis, Nicholas Hytner, Jack O’Brien, George C. Wolfe (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom), Daniel Sullivan, Trevor Nunn, Jeffrey Seller to Tony Kushner.
If tackling the entity that is Broadway seems to be the most potentially thankless job for a documentary filmmaker, you wouldn’t be far off. All those involved with On Broadway should take incredible pride in the fact that they have done something extraordinary. Documentarians will tell you horror stories centered around critics and historians who have torn their work apart because it dug too deeply or didn’t dig deeply enough.
Jacoby has crafted a film that never feels overly long or too heavy with information. Instead, it comes off as a celebration of love and the ethereal connection between those sitting in the seats and those who work in some capacity who help with raising that curtain.
The ultimate compliment for a film such as this is that, suddenly, live theater has blasted off to become a sooner than later bucket-list item for yourself, post-pandemic. As soon as this review is filed, someone will be searching for “live theater.”
Grade: A+