It may be premature to start picking highlights, but at just past the halfway mark, it's beginning to look like three of the season's most satisfying productions will not be in the running for Tony Awards.
For the first time in recent memory, three of New York's leading nonprofits have bona fide hits playing simultaneously in their Off Broadway spaces: "The Cripple of Inishmaan" at the Atlantic, "Becky Shaw" at Second Stage and "Ruined" at Manhattan Theater Club. And while any or all of those productions might normally be a strong candidate to be bumped up to Broadway, the timing appears to be against them.
To transfer or not to transfer is a question often raised when a show opens Off Broadway to the kind of critical and commercial response these productions have received. (All three have extended their engagements at least once.) But in such a frosty economic climate, producers are more nervous than ever about moving to the higher-stakes Rialto.
Then there's the question of theater availability. Despite dire pronouncements about dwindling ticket sales, there are 20 more Broadway openings still to come this season, leaving very little vacant real estate.
Regardless of the barriers, plays seem to be at a disadvantage in terms of their perceived viability for Broadway, unless they are driven by major marquee names. "Inishmaan," "Becky Shaw" and "Ruined" all benefit from superlative stagings and razor-sharp ensembles. What they don't have is stars.
The spring roster includes Off Broadway upgrades of the plays "Reasons to Be Pretty" and "Irena's Vow," so clearly some producers still feel they can make the model work. However, most tend to be more inclined to take risks on transferring musicals, regardless of how far they depart from the traditional Broadway template.
That can mean mold-breaking hits like "Avenue Q" or "Spring Awakening," or critically acclaimed shows such as "Grey Gardens" and "Passing Strange" that expand the horizons of contemporary musical theateryet struggle to sustain a wide audience.
But it can also mean disposable upstarts like "Glory Days," "[title of show]" or this week's thankless newcomer "The Story of My Life," which share a poverty of imagination that matches their limited means. Small is not always good, and while these navel-gazers might look adorable in an intimate Off Broadway or regional house, their charms are stretched thin on Broadway -- especially to folks paying north of $100 a ticket.
The willingness to steer these fragile vehicles to the Rialto is evidence of producers not thinking realistically about either the marketplace or their show.
The current stagings of "Inishmaan," "Becky Shaw" and "Ruined," on the other hand, are the kind of top-drawer theater audiences should expect to see on Broadway. The plays are entertaining, engrossing, constantly surprising and infinitely nuanced, yet they couldn't be less like one another.
Martin McDonagh's "Inishmaan," set in 1934 in a remote Aran Island community abuzz with the news of a Hollywood filmmaker in its midst, was previously produced in New York at the Public Theater in 1998. But Jerry Zaks' staging was a major misfire, running just 10 days. So the Atlantic's co-production with Galway-based company Druid, directed by preeminent Irish-theater artisan Garry Hynes, is for most local audiences a premiere.
McDonagh's gifts are in full force as a rip-roaring storyteller, a master of unpredictable character interplay and a conduit for a specifically Irish love of language at its most musically arcane. But unlike his better known plays, such as "The Beauty Queen of Leenane," "The Pillowman" and "The Lieutenant of Inishmore," "The Cripple of Inishmaan" teases its audience with hints of sweet sentimentality before suddenly reverting to cruelty. Hynes' flawless cast plays the savage humor to perfection.
As for "Becky Shaw," Gina Gionfriddo's clever riff on the central character from Thackeray's "Vanity Fair" owes its crackling pleasures to a crisp, contemporary edge, keen pop-cultural awareness and stinging observations on love, class and emotional dependency.
Smart, sophisticated comedies like this used to be a Broadway staple but have become increasingly rare since the lines were blurred with sitcom. It takes real skill to present five equally abrasive, self-interested characters -- including the sensitive-souled husband who cries while watching porn -- and make an audience care what happens to them, not to mention weave them into such a taut structure. But Gionfriddo, director Peter DuBois and a dazzling cast pull it off.
And without in any way belaboring its timeliness, the comedy's focus on people whose security rug -- financial or otherwise -- has been yanked out from under them makes it tailor-made for today's audiences.
Lynn Nottage's "Ruined," about Congolese victims of rape and sexual mutilation, is a long way from comedy, but the gentle grace notes of humor, hope and resilience, and the soulful music laced through this wrenching drama are part of what makes it so spellbinding.
Plenty of dramatists have documented the horrors of distant wars, but seldom is this done with such a riveting human focus, such an absence of self-importance or such vivid evocation of a remote cultural reality. Kate Whoriskey's penetrating production and her intense, fearless cast make this impassioned twist on "Mother Courage" as immediate as anything happening on the audience's doorstep.
Transferring any of these productions entails daunting marketing challenges, but with so much talk in D.C. of the need for increased investment in national infrastructure, isn't it time to overhaul Broadway's infrastructure, too?
There must be enterprising producers out there who can figure a way to package limited runs, keep transfer costs down and reach a discerning audience, even without the sales leverage of big-name talent. With premium Off Broadway houses now charging a top ticket of up to $85, the difference from a Broadway ducat is minimal. But the leap in media exposure, audience awareness and potential awards recognition is considerable.
Or if transfers really are out of the question for these three plays, maybe it's time for the Tonys to think about expanding the spotlight with an award for the best Off Broadway production of the season.
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