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Montreal/Toronto
but our own?
By Joel Greenberg
For more than ten years the mega - musical has been a constant resident in Canada, particularly in Toronto. What began with Cats, now and forever, has led to Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera, Miss Saigon, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Aspects of Love, Tommy, Beauty and the Beast and Sunset Boulevard. All of these productions, with the lone exception of Beauty and the Beast, have been "made in Britain" and have come to Canada with the tell - tale signs of the franchised product: the audition process that has been a national sweep of our singer - dancer - actor triple threats; the newspaper coverage of these same auditions that have whipped up enthusiasm as much as a year in advance of the first rehearsal; and the original Broadway television commercials that have flooded prime - time hours - the shows that cast Canadians in principal roles and then advertise the shows by broadcasting the New York actors are especially troubling.
We have witnessed advertising campaigns that have left no bus shelters unadorned with a show's logo and we have watched ticket prices soar to their present sum of $90 + IN ADDITION TO THE SERVICE CHARGE. We have seen a few of these productions - Cats, Les Miserables and Joseph, in particular - return again and again to full houses and the customary standing ovation. We have also seen that Aspects of Love, for all its hype and Andrew Lloyd Webber - ship, could not find an audience to sustain it. And more recently we have read of the closing notices of Crazy for You, Miss Saigon and Tommy, each posted earlier than the producers had hoped. Aspects of Love was the first victim of premature exhilaration leading to commercial death, but its symptoms were obvious - the show had no teeth and the audience had less interest. However, with the other three shows it seems likely that audiences are just plain tired of hype, dizzying effects and thundering sound. Audiences are also pretty done in by the cost of the whole enterprise - if you go to one of these events and have people to take along, multiply each member of your...