On Saturday I saw Blood/Love, Carey Renee Sharpe and Dru DeCaro's pop opera about the Queen of Hell who rejects Satan and becomes an unholy nosferatu. Then Wednesday night I saw the Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. One of these plays is about people mercilessly drained to the last drop of their life's blood. The other one has singing vampires.
Pop has become a prominent genre for musical theatre, just as rock was before it, with memorable Broadway juggernauts from Jesus Christ Superstar to Rent to American Idiot. Rock music is inherently messy, though, and the musicals that use it tend to be deeply flawed even as they are often inspired and touching. (I'm looking at you, Chess.) Pop music, by contrast, has had its rough edges smoothed away, leading many pop musicals to have a shiny surface, but to sadly be lacking in depth.
When I first heard about the pop musical Six, I was incredibly excited, but I found the play's follow-through to be a bit disappointing. Similarly, the first act of KPOP was some of the most fun I've ever had in the theater, but the musical's creators seemed incapable of writing the sort of simple, honest song, free from over-production, that its protagonist longed to perform. I have nothing bad to say about the pop music in Blood/Love, unless it's that the music is almost too perfect, sustaining a constant level of competence that doesn't allow any one number to stand out much.
That might be a result of the pop medium, which also could have influenced the story the play tells. Like the belting pop ballads the show features, Blood/Love appears to be passionately sincere in every note, even when the subject matter might lend itself to a bit more variety. Yes, the show does utilize humor. ("The Devil is my ex," the protagonist awkwardly confesses to her new love interest.) However, this tale about how the Queen of Hell becomes a vampire, when you dig a little deeper, is actually about... how the Queen of Hell becomes a vampire. I overheard one young woman complaining after the show, "I was expecting a metaphor for toxic relationships. Where were the toxic relationships I wanted?"
Director Joe Mantello's revival of Death of a Salesman has different challenges. Miller's script drips with metaphoric imagery, from the stoop Willy Loman builds for his house, to the diamond watch fob he gets from his brother, to the valises he carries about with him making sales. Mantello updates the play's aesthetic to the 1970s, makes the set resemble a giant garage, and has young Biff pose atop the Loman car in football gear like some sort of Greek god. There's no lack of symbolism, though the direction can manage to make it needlessly obscure at times, particularly at the end.
The show is still in previews and could change, so I won't engage in spoilers, but I will say, please, Mr. Mantello, please, if you're reading this, fix your ending! Laurie Metcalf is a brilliant actor, and I loved her in A Doll's House, Part 2. She's a phenomenal Linda Loman, but even she can't make those grave-side antics you've given to her make sense to the audience. You're in previews, so it's not too late. Fix it!
Nathan Lane is wonderful as Willy Loman, which might be a surprise for audience members who know him primarily as a comedic performer. Instead of the frenzied antics he displayed in Gary, he embraces the tragic situation of Miller's working-stiff hero. Willy's mental and physical difficulties, sometimes papered over in performance, come front and center in this production.
Christopher Abbott, who played the troubled husband of the titular prophetess in the recent film The Testament of Ann Lee, plays Biff in this production. Though early on he is upstaged by his brother Happy (played by Ben Ahlers), he emerges as a force to be reckoned with later in the play.
Blood/Love and Death of a Salesman are both worth seeing... though for different reasons. The pop opera doesn't always offer the nuanced acting on display at the Winter Garden Theatre, but on the other hand, Miller's play does noticeably lack driving electric guitar solos.
