After the wonderful awards ceremony in 2000, watching last night's farcical attempt at a real awards presentation was nothing short of painful. Watching a show like The Full Monty - which did nothing but take risks few have been willing to take in the history of theatre - get 10 nominations and not a single award was tearjerking. And then there was Mel Brooks...
Not being one who finds Judaism or Hitler in and of themself particularly funny (don't get me wrong - I'm not saying that neither can be funny, I'm merely saying that the mention of them isn't funny to me), I don't see the appeal of Mel Brooks. Outside of Blazing Saddles, I'm not a big fan of his work. I do respect him - after all, Neil Simon has gone on record as saying he's the most naturally funny man he's ever known - but I don't like his output. And speaking of Neil Simon... it took Brooks' friend until Biloxi Blues in 1985 to win the first of his two - that's right, two - Tony Awards for Best Play. It took Brooks less than a year. Granted, Simon won for Best Author (Dramatic) for The Odd Couple in 1968, but lost Best Play to The Subject Was Roses by Frank D. Gilroy.
Watching Mel Brooks win for Best Score when Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty's Seussical wasn't even nominated probably hurt the most. Say what you want about Seussical, the music was brilliant. It became the hip show to put down this season, but Lynn and Steve (and Kevin Chamberlin, who received a nomination but little else) were held accountable, even to the point of their not being nominated for their brilliant score.
And it isn't that The Producers won twelve awards. Many of them were perfect choices. Susan Stroman deserves all the awards she can muster. Mel Brooks deserved the nod for Best Book of a Musical. Surely, The Producers even deserved Best Musical and Best Lighting. But there are key areas that bother me tremendously, and it isn't all Producers related.
Proof beat out King Hedley II. Go figure. I haven't had a chance to see any of the straight play revivals, but if what I witnessed last night was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest's best five minutes, I feel terrible. And this is coming from the Steppenwolf's number one admirer. Nathan Lane beat out both Matthew Broderick (who was brilliant in The Producers and Kevin Chamberlin for Best Leading Actor in a Musical. Surprisingly, this was only Lane's second award, which is still a shock to me. But then, he's a bigger draw than Chamberlin, or de Shields, or any of the other fine actors performing last night. So, in a move mimicking last year's absence of a nomination for Patrick Stewart - the producers made their weight on Broadway felt.
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