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Mamma Mia! It's a Hit!
Or, Popular Successes and Critical Failures
Dateline: 8th September, 2002
The Broadway production of Mamma Mia! has recouped its total
investment in six months, according to a report by Judd Hollander in
"The Stage". It holds many records, including the highest
one-day advanced ticket sales. The four North American productions -
in New York, St Louis, San Francisco and Toronto - grossed over $4m
in the week ending 15th August, $1,047,831 on Broadway alone.
And yet it was panned by the New York critics and virtually ignored
in the various awards.
It's not the first time that the critics and the public have been out
of step, as Andrew Lloyd Webber, amongst others, can bear witness. Think
of Cats, of Starlight Express. Think of Michael Billington's
condemnation of a show which keeps coming back, Godspell ("Now
is your chance to miss it again"). Think of Clive Barnes' rejection
of the British musical ("I came out whistling the scenery").
There's precedent for't! Contemporary critics dismissed Keats as "the
cockney poet". And just look at how Colley Cibber "improved"
Shakespeare. And, of course, we all know how, much more recently, many
of our most disinguished critics have been forced to eat their words
about Sarah Kane.
How can the critics and the public be so out of step?
There are numerous possible answers. Critics might argue, for instance,
that they are concerned with what is good, whilst the public is only
concerned with what it likes. The two, of course, are not necessarily
synonymous. That might actually be a convincing argument, but it doesn't
explain Keats, Cibber or Kane.
One might argue that critics too often see themselves as the guardians
of an establishment and react badly to any challenge to that establishment.
It would explain Keats. Or that critics are just failed artists and
that they reject the new out of jealousy - and that certainly explains
Cibber (not that Shakespeare was new, of course, but the principle holds
good) - those who can create become artists; those who can', but want
to, become critics.
There are undoubtedly more reasons, and possibly all of them contain
some element of truth.
For me, however, the important thing is that the critics can get it
wrong, that the public doesn't follow like sheep. What a world it would
be if we could predict unerringly the successes and failures. What would
the world be, once bereft of that uncertainty? Boring as hell!
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