TV or not TV

In a bold and enterprising move, the Broadway musical Legally Blonde was recently taped for broadcast on MTV. The producers are obviously aiming to capture the Wicked teenybopper crowd, and tickets to the taping were given out for free with the following stipulations: You must be young (in your teens or early 20s) and dressed in pink. I saw the show live this summer (I loved it for its zest and spirit, despite its unevenness elsewhere), and I caught the first half of the televised performance, which pulled in millions of viewers (yet to be seen: whether they actually pay to see the show live after TiVo-ing it, playing it, and replaying it to excess).

Watching Blonde prepackaged for TV made me ponder the virtues of live performance. Every so often, I despair over the state of theater--the lack of artistic integrity, risk, or profound statement--but I sometimes forget the interpretive freedom fairly heaped on a theater viewer that is unwittingly snatched from a TV watcher.

1. ADHD viewing. LB features some snazzy camera work, but it also takes away your ability to choose where to look at any given moment. Sure, in a theater a good director will guide your viewing experience, but you always have the choice to look elsewhere--as I often do--at a particularly striking member of the ensemble, at a flash of lighting, or at the detail on a prop or piece of scenery. Watching LB, I felt manipulated--visual angles and perspectives changed without my consent, and often at the expense of the performers (were the dramatic up-the-nose camera shots supposed to replicate the experience of sitting in the front row?).

2. Snooty commentary. Watching a new Broadway show, we often hear voices in our heads--critics' reviews, friends' opinions, our own preconceptions--but any of these are less intrusive than the uninterested, too-cool-for-you, apathetic, more-bored-than-thou commentary provided by the adolescent veejays that narrated LB. Before and after each commercial break (another distinctly un-theater-ish oddity) these stone-faced stick girls stared blandly into the camera to sum up the plot and, ostensibly, stir up interest in its evolution. Is this the new hip MTV female prototype? I certainly hope not--these girls exhibited about as much enthusiasm as a crumpled-up Playbill.

3. Studio audience effect. Each cast member's entrance (even minor characters) was greeted with unbridled squeals, screams, and applause. Notable performers (and especially legendary actors and celebrities) often receive entrance applause, but this was more like a boy band concert. I'm guessing that the audience was prompted to erupt into an avalanche of sound, and it was enormously distracting (and, ironically, now that I think of it, diametrically opposed to the VJs' parched commentary). Sitting in a theater, it's easy to get caught up in a cascade of laughter or applause, but sitting at home, the hawhaws of a studio audience sounds not only canned, but forced and fake.

So thank you, Legally Blonde and MTV, for reminding me, even during my most banal viewing moments, of the superior virtues of live performance. And yes, I will finish watching the taped performance--the curtain call response promises to be unlike (and mightier than) anything I've ever seen (or heard) on stage.