Tony telecast: Yes, TV can still be fun

For three splendid hours, we were reminded how much fun TV can be.
These were the Tony Awards that almost didn’t happen. Only a compromise allowed the show to go on (scriptless) during the Writers Guild strike; flaws and all, it was terrific.
And yes, there were flaws. It was a mostly humorless night … the acceptance speeches were repetitious … a “tribute” to John Kander and Joel Grey was bizarre … and host Ariana DeBose didn’t sing.
But the big moments overwhelmed all of that. We were reminded that musicals – Broadway (shown here with the Tony-winning set fort “New York, New York”) and beyond – can be spectacular, and that TV can do a great job of showing them off.
At first, there were fears this would never happen. The writers would picket, the actors would honor the picket line, the show would stumble.
Then the people who write for both stage and screen convinced their union to relent. The no-script compromise was bad and good news:
— The bad was the lack of humor. It was a rare delight when Patrick Marber – winning a Tony for directing the serious play “Leopoldstadt” – improvised a riff about how TV showed the actors’ faces, but not the directors’. Even the show’s director didn’t want to see directors, he said. It was delivered with dry skill … and reminded us that live TV really can have laughs. There were few others.
— The other bad was that there was more room for acceptance speeches. The first few rippled with passion … then the others often repeated what had already been said.
— And the good was that there was more room for musical numbers, which we got in abundance.
There were the five nominated new musicals, the four nominated revivals and others tossed in – the “Funny Girl” revival (now with Lea Michele) … the Neil Diamond show “A Beautiful Noise” … and a mention of the closing of “Phantom of the Opera,” leading into one of its songs done for the “In Memoriam” portion, beautifully by previous Tony-winner Joaquina Kalukango.
There were also two dance-only numbers – one spectacular, to open the show, the other brief, as a sort-of tribute to lifetime-award winners Grey, 91, and Kander, 96. Both included dancing by DeBose – a gifted singer-dancer who inexplicably didn’t sinbg.
But the highlight was the time each musical got to present itself onstage.
Some simply did a self-contained number. That was fine if you had Michele singing “Don’t Rain on My Parade” (which she also did at the Macy’s parade) or you had a charming little number from Tony-winner “Kimberly Akimbo”; it was less impressive with a so-so number from “Into the Woods.”
And others poured a lot into their time. It almost seemed like “Camelot” had packed an entire musical score – a great one – into a few minutes.
That also seemed true of “Some Like It Hot” and, especially, “New York, New York.”
The latter adapted a 1977 movie that included the hit song by Kander and the late Fred Ebb. Lin-Manuel Miranda was the new lyricist and included a theme he had also mentioned in his “In the Heights” – the wide-eyed wonder of newcomers to the city.
Yes, the show has received negative reviews and (like most new Broadway shows) has wobbled at the box office. But at this moment, it was perfect for a splendid evening in New York, New York.