Celebrities on Broadway: A Thought Provoking Debate

Ben Brantley has written an article (whose text I have copied here and which can be found at http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/26/theater-talkback-stage-resuscitation-for-career-challenged-celebrities/?ref=theater) about celebrities on Broadway as a vehicle to resurrect a faltering career and a means to sell extra tickets. Read the article below, or by following the link I posted above, and leave your comments about this phenomenon and who you think should (or should NOT) come to Broadway and in what role.


Theater Talkback: Stage Resuscitation for Career-Challenged Celebrities
Ben Brantley

While you theater-going butterflies out there keep nattering on about the Tonys — who will win, who should win, and so on — I have been focused on an issue of far greater momentousness and urgency. That’s the shameful squandering on Broadway of what our country would seem to believe is our most valued (and infinitely exploitable) natural resource: our celebrities.

It has become a fact of cultural life in New York that a theater producer in search of big box office will seek out a famous person, regardless of his or her talents or credentials. Famous people of all stripes are returning the compliment by looking to Broadway to rejuvenate their careers, enhance their artistic credibility and pitch woo to audiences that may have ceased to believe in their existence.

The results of such marriages of stage and stardom have not always been ideal, as this past season alone can testify. (Why give Robin Williams a theater and then ask him to underact? Who thought it was a good idea to make the musically challenged Daniel Radcliffe sing and dance?)

In hopes of averting such missteps in the seasons to come, I am proposing a little list that matches stars in search of redemption with roles tailor-made to their particular skills and images. Yes, I know that the bountiful producers Fran and Barry Weissler continue to provide many homeless celebrities with the shelter of their deathless revival of “Chicago,” and that we can expect Britney, J. Lo and Gwen eventually to follow in the pseudo-dancing footsteps of Melanie Griffith, Ashlee Simpson and Christie Brinkley. But perhaps the Weisslers and their producing kin might want to consider some of the following options as well.

Lindsay Lohan: This undeniably talented (and for all intents and purposes, former) film actress poses a special challenge. Her only recent work appears to have been as a paparazzi model and professional partygoer, and a big, line-laden dramatic part like Blanche DuBois might be too onerous to start with. So why not put her in the Broadway premiere of “Finishing the Picture,” a late-career Arthur Miller play inspired by the travails of making a movie (“The Misfits”) with his wife Marilyn Monroe? Having seen a production of this play in Chicago, I can testify that the Marilyn part requires only that the actress playing her be willing to appear asleep and stupefied and, briefly, to walk across the stage naked. For Ms. Lohan, who credibly impersonated Marilyn for a New York magazine photo shoot, this ought to be a cinch. Should an eight-performance week prove too taxing, I suggest Paris Hilton for matinees.

Mel Gibson: The adverse-publicity-choked Mr. Gibson comes with a built-in bonus — he has Shakespeare in his past. (Surely you haven’t forgotten that he played the title role in the Franco Zeffirelli “Hamlet.”) So it seems a natural for the notoriously explosive Mr. Gibson to take on the angriest and most addled of Shakespeare’s tragic heroes, the bloody avenger named Titus Andronicus. That the play is set in ancient Rome should also prove an asset to Mr. Gibson, whose affection for really old times and dead languages has been evident in the films “The Passion of the Christ” and “Apocalypto,” both of which he directed. Tuesday night performances, perhaps, could be in Latin.

Charlie Sheen: If he were 10 or 15 years younger (or at least looked like he was), Mr. Sheen would be perfect as the splenetic, screed-spouting anti-hero of John Osborne’s “Look Back in Anger.” As it is, I can see him doing beautifully by the splenetic, screed-spouting shock jock of Eric Bogosian’s “Talk Radio,” a fame-warped character who is described as having looked in the mirror and seen the face of God.

Mick Jagger: I know he doesn’t need the work. But since Keith Richards has been catapulted into the ether of literary distinction with his memoir, “Life,” Mr. Jagger might want to claim his own turf in the land of high culture. For him, I suggest another creation from Osborne: Archie Rice, the aging, cynical music hall song-and-dance man of “The Entertainer,” who is both addicted to and contemptuous of life on the stage and the people who come to see him there. It will be hard work, displacing memories of Laurence Olivier, who created the part on stage and screen, but the weathered showboat that is Mr. Jagger seems a highly likely candidate.

Lady Gaga: O.K., she sure doesn’t need the work either. But who these days could better bring over-the-top Ziegfeld-style glamour back to Broadway? And who better to update everybody’s favorite (but slightly creaky) eccentric relative, Auntie Mame? Just think of the costume opportunities provided by a post-modern 21st-century version of the musical “Mame!” Her ladyship may be a tad young for a role portrayed by Angela Lansbury (and Ginger Rogers and Ann Miller) onstage (and, less fortunately, Lucille Ball on film). But the role of madcap spiritual godmother to little misfit monsters everywhere is one that Lady Gaga already has down cold.

And here I stop, and turn the floor over to your suggestions for Broadway debuts for the famous and infamous. Please note that I have gallantly left Arnold Schwarzenegger untouched.