Smash, soon to appear on NBC, focuses on the cutthroat theater world of Broadway musicals. Smash revolves around a group of stock characters who come together to put on a Broadway musical based on the life of Marilyn Monroe. But before that can happen, the people who make theatrical magic must deal with their own personal dramas. For some who live their lives in the myopic theatre world of New York City, the show will probably be a justification for their own soap opera existence. God knows that the show gets many details just right.
But translating the theatre to the small screen turns theatre into television. And the moment that a big screen clip of the real Marilyn Monroe is shown, the series Smash is reduced to mostly perfunctory and unoriginal material.
From the material shown in the show-in-development-within-the-show, Marilyn Monroe seems a terrible idea for a Broadway musical. The only way for Broadway to translate the sensuality and emotional availability of the character of Marilyn to the stage is to rely on musical numbers more appropriate for, say, a slightly used-up Katy Perry.
Still, Smash isn’t an instant flop. The pilot tries hard to please the picky theatre geek crowd, all while doing everything to make the curious onlooker feel comfortable as well.
Theresa Rebeck has written characters she seems to know well. Michael Mayer, responsible for this season’s disastrous (and now closed) Broadway production of On A Clear Day You Can See Forever directed the pilot episode, with Steven Spielberg serving as an executive producer. Debra Messing does her best mid-30s Annette Benning impersonation as one of the writers of the Marilyn show. Christian Borle plays her slightly smarmy gay composer co-creator. Megan Hilty plays the tacky, curvy Broadway egomaniac set on playing Marilyn Monroe. Angelica Huston plays the powerful, empty producer. Unfortunately she has taken on the appearance of an aging drag queen, so the nuances of her character’s emotional life are difficult to read.
Given that most of the cast are Broadway veterans (and a few casualties), American Idol‘s Katharine McPhee is the refreshing talent onboard. Small surprise that the actress with a TV pedigree fares best in this TV show (about a theatre show). Maybe the real Broadway can lure her to the stage sometime soon so that we can see (and hear) her talent in person.
A pilot is difficult to begin with; so much airtime must be spent establishing characters and relationships that the action of the story can disappear. Fortunately, Smash‘s built in musical numbers keep the show aloft, and the talented dancers of the production numbers appear capable of getting a spin-off of their own.
But does TV need Smash? I doubt it. But then again, all those Glee fans have to go somewhere… and from the number of musicals that just closed on Broadway in the past few weeks, they’re clearly not going to the theatre.
For the record, from the look of the pilot episode, I seem to personally know or have worked with about 25 percent of the entire cast of Smash. But this review won’t be affected by all that. After all — it’s only Broadway.
Starting this week, Smash’s pilot episode became available on iTunes.
