I bet that headline got your attention!  But, as you’ll see a little later in this post, the scene in question is not really a “rape” at all.  But that didn’t keep the NY Daily News from running this headline yesterday:

‘Bye Bye Birdie’ revival on Broadway drops scene for ‘gang rape’ concern

“Just a copy editor trying to get attention by over-exaggerating a story,” you think?  That’s what I thought, too.  But here is the story with Gina Gershon’s quote:

According to Gina Gershon, who stars as Rose in the upcoming revival, the production has said bye bye to a frisky dance sequence that has been in the show since its debut in 1960.  In the scene, Rose, originated on stage by Chita Rivera and on film by Janet Leigh, crashes a Shriners banquet, flirts and cavorts on, around and underneath a table with the fez-heads.  As written, it’s a funny dance showcase. So why is it too hot to handle in 2009? Gershon told The News’ theater critic Joe Dziemianowicz, “It seemed a little too gang rape-y.”

The Daily News takes the words right out of my mouth when it says:

That should come as interesting news to countless high schools, parochial academies and theater camps where this number has been performed for nearly 50 years.

Before I give you my guess as to what is really going on here, I will let you judge for yourself.  Here is Chita Rivera performing Gower Champion’s original Broadway choreography:

It’s not my favorite scene from a 60’s musical, but I don’t think it could be objectively described as a “Gang Rape”… unless you mean that the character of Rose is raping the gang of Shriners!!!

So, what is this REALLY all about?  Here is my hunch:

Whenever a Hollywood star is cast to do a Broadway musical, the first question everyone asks is:  ”Can he/she sing?”  In the cases of Glenn Close and Hugh Jackman, the answer was “YES!”  In the case of Faye Dunaway, the answer was “Oh God, NO!”

But, in the case of Rose in “Bye, Bye Birdie,” the relevant question is not whether Gershon can sing, because Rose’s songs are not very challenging… no, what defines the role of Rose is following in the footsteps of Chita Rivera and living up to the distant memory of her dancing.  Rivera is a Broadway legend who enjoys a reputation of holding an audience captivated with her body and how she moved it.  So, the big question in relation to Gershon being announced as Rose in this revival was not “Can she sing?”; it was “Can she dance?”

Now, I try my best not to be too snarky or catty in my posts.  And I’ve already noted this revival as something I am personally looking forward to…  but, based on this little kerfuffle over cutting this dance sequence and the really lame excuse (“gang rape-y”?  come on!), I think it is fair to say that the answer is, “No, she can’t dance.. at least not well enough to hold the stage for a dance sequence like this.”

As we’ve all seen on “Dancing With the Stars,” if you are paired with a great dancer, you can learn enough and practice enough to be a good enough partner to look like you can dance.  But when you are alone on stage dancing without a partner as Rose is in this number… well, that is something you can’t fake.  And to me, this sounds like a good director and a good choreographer protecting their star and coming up with a press agent’s excuse for cutting a number.

Further evidence of this?  The show is set to begin previews on September 15.  This means the show has been in rehearsal for a couple of weeks.  If the producers and director of this show wanted to cut this number for the reason they are stating now, the decision would have been made a while ago.  You have to believe that they tried it out, and it wasn’t working.  (Unless you believe that they only now have realized that the scene is “Gang Rape-y” after spending the time creating the scene, rehearsing the scene, costuming the scene… etc…)

By the way, revivals have recently been subject to political correct revisions.  The most common is the song “I’m an Indian Too” being excised from Irving Berlin’s “Annie Get Your Gun.”  The Native American community (how PC am I???) have found these lyrics from the 1946 play offensive:

Like the Chippewa,
Iroquois,
Omaha…
Like those Indians
I’m an Indian too
A Sioux
A Sioux

Just like Rising Moon
Falling Pants
Running Nose
Like those Indians
I’m an Indian too
A Sioux
A Sioux

Some Indian drummers they’re without a care
I may run away
With Big Chief Sun-of-A-Bear

And I’ll have totem poles
Tomahawk
Small papoose
Which will go to prove
I’m an Indian too
A sioux
A sioux
A sioux
Oh, I’m an indian
I’m an Indian
I’m an honest Injun Indian

I’m an Indian, too.

What has always bugged me about this song being removed is the CONTEXT of the song in the show (context still means SOMETHING, doesn’t it?).  Annie sings it right after Chief Sitting Bull adopts her into the Sioux tribe.  She is honored, proud and happy to be adopted.

Here is rare footage of Mary Martin in the original 1946 production:

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Now, obviously this scene is not meant as a historically accurate depiction of a traditional Sioux ceremony, but is it mean-spirited, insulting, derisive?  Not in my politically incorrect opinion.

So, I guess I’m saying…  Gina, if you can dance it, BRING ON THE GANG RAPE SCENE!

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Just as last season brought a record number of plays as well as stellar gross sales (despite doom-sayers in the industry) this season already looks locked and loaded with a huge number of shows scheduled to open between October 1st and the first week of May (the traditional Tony nomination cut-off).  So to help the readers of Big Hollywood plan their trip to the Great White Way (we can still say that, can’t we?), I submit the top 10 things to look for from the center/right perspective:

10.  ”Superior Donuts” – A transfer from Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre (one of my personal favorite regional houses in America), the play stars “Spinal Tap”’s Michael McKean as an aging hippie who owns a donut shop in a largely black neighborhood and Jon Michael Hill (do all young Broadway actors HAVE to go by three names now?) as a 21-year-old from the neighborhood who talks his way into a job at the shop.  From the New York Times review:  ”In one of the play’s most amusing exchanges Franco challenges Arthur to name 10 black poets. Arthur names a few, then stands dumb, a look of deep concentration on his face. “It’s like watching George Bush on ‘Jeopardy!’ ” Franco cracks.”

9.  ”Hamlet” – Uber-UN activist Jude Law stars as the Danish prince in a Broadway transfer from London’s famed Donmar Warehouse theatre company.  His performance was almost universally praised by Fleet Street’s snarky critics.  This production has Hamlet delivering his “To be, or not to be” soliloquy in an on-stage snowfall.

8.  ”Bye, Bye, Birdie” – One of the first musicals to embrace pop music with a back-beat, “Bye, Bye, Birdie” will receive a revival at New York’s Roundabout Theatre Company.  It will star Gina Gershon, Dee Hoty, Bill Irwin and (wait for it….) John Stamos.  All I can say is this production has the potential to be fantastic, or to be a complete disaster… don’t expect anything in between.

7.  ”The Neil Simon Plays:  Brighton Beach Memoirs & Broadway Bound” – Revivals of two of the three plays which made up the Neil Simon “BB” trilogy will play in repertory this Fall (I’m guessing the middle play, “Biloxi Blues,” is omitted because Brighton Beach and Broadway Bound share the exact same set which is the Brighton Beach home of Simon’s alter-ego, Eugene, so it is much easier to play them in Rep.  Biloxi takes place in an Army barracks as it follow Eugene through basic training).  The revivals will star Laurie Metcalf.

6.  ”In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play)” – After having its world premiere at Berkley Rep., this play is transferring to Broadway via Lincoln Center Theatre.  The New York Times describes the play as:  “A fanciful but compassionate consideration of the treatment, and the mistreatment, of women in the late 19th century” and the show’s website calls it “a comedy about marriage, intimacy and electricity.” Hmmm…  In the words of Forrest Gump:  ”And that’s all I have to say about that.”

5.  ”Race” – World Premiere of David Mamet’s newest play starring James Spader, Kerry Washington and Richard Thomas.  When asked about details of the plot, producer Jefferey Richards said:  ”The title speaks for itself.”  Mamet, Spader and a play called “Race.”  Seriously, ENOUGH SAID!

4.  ”A Steady Rain” – Starring Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman, this play is one of the most anticipated of the Fall.  A press report describes the Chicago premiere as: “A Steady Rain chronicles love and rage on the streets of Chicago as a domestic disturbance call sends two Chicago cops, friends since childhood, on a harrowing journey that will test their loyalties and change their lives forever.” But, as the NY Post succinctly said: “Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman in police uniforms? All the boys will be there!”

3.  ”The Addams Family” – A musical adaptation of the famous, macabre characters starring Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwerth.  I am both embarrassed and proud that I am SO looking forward to this show!

2.  ”The Royal Family“  – George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber’s famous parody of the Barrymore family, this revival will star Rosemary Harris, Stephen Collins, John Glover, Tony Roberts, Jan Maxwell, Ana Gasteyer and Reg Rogers.  Its view of celebrity and privilege in the tunnel-vision perspective of an actor’s life resonates just as perfectly today as it did in 1927.  Really looking forward to see this cast play those characters (especially since I went to school with one of them!).

1.  ”Oleanna” – The Broadway premiere of Mamet’s 1992 Pulitzer-Prize winning play (it appeared off-Broadway at that time making this production it’s Broadway premiere).  When originally produced, this play was a compelling, challenging and electrifying reflection of the ground-breaking Clarence Thomas hearing that had split the nation the year before.  The 1992 production starring William H. Macy and Rebecca Pidgeon was universally praised for its thought-provoking approach to the issue of sexual harassment and the use of rhetoric as a weapon in politically correct America.  None other than Frank Rich gave it one of his strongest endorsements as theatre critic of the New York Times.  But, a funny thing happened between 1992 and today, David Mamet famously proclaimed himself “No longer a brain-dead liberal.”  Will this breach of liberal dogma and orthodoxy in any way affect the theatre community’s once universal praise of “Oleanna”?  I know I will be looking very closely at how it is received by the critics as well as industry insiders.  This new revival premiered in Los Angeles at the Mark Taper Forum starring Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles.

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