Review: ‘Springsteen on Broadway’ Reveals the Artist, Real and Intense
- 7 years ago
Review: ‘Springsteen on Broadway’ Reveals the Artist, Real and Intense
Are there any other artists of Mr. Springsteen’s stature who would choose to drive a show — on Broadway yet — so close
and so often toward what he calls the “suicide watch”?
With its choruses now spat away quickly and its bleak verses about damaged veterans
dwelt on, it is, as Mr. Springsteen says he always intended, a “protest song.”
This will not be news to fans who have been paying attention to him during the 30 years since his sleeveless T-shirt
and bandanna heyday, or to anyone who has read his hair-raising 2016 memoir, “Born to Run.” There he outlined an ideal of rock music as a “culture shaper” and an ideal of himself as someone who would “collide with the times” in order to change them.
At other times, in the startling intimacy of the 939-seat theater (Mr. Springsteen often plays stadiums
that are vastly larger) and with the help of Brian Ronan’s you-are-there sound design, “Springsteen on Broadway” seems like a radio monodrama broadcast from the deepest interior of a single troubled soul.
Even less does it try to be a feel-good Broadway book musical or a slick, whitewashed jukebox like “Jersey Boys.”
Rather, “Springsteen on Broadway” is a painful if thrilling summing-up at 68: a major statement about a life’s work, but also a major revision of it.
There have been many such masks over the years — mama’s boy, loner, stadium stud, Woody
Guthrie — each developed through songs that would seem to cancel each other out.
That’s why the show’s version of “Dancing in the Dark” admits no clapping; sung at a slower-than-usual tempo,
and accompanied only by Mr. Springsteen on acoustic guitar, it is no longer the casual invitation to sex it seemed to be in its first incarnation.
Are there any other artists of Mr. Springsteen’s stature who would choose to drive a show — on Broadway yet — so close
and so often toward what he calls the “suicide watch”?
With its choruses now spat away quickly and its bleak verses about damaged veterans
dwelt on, it is, as Mr. Springsteen says he always intended, a “protest song.”
This will not be news to fans who have been paying attention to him during the 30 years since his sleeveless T-shirt
and bandanna heyday, or to anyone who has read his hair-raising 2016 memoir, “Born to Run.” There he outlined an ideal of rock music as a “culture shaper” and an ideal of himself as someone who would “collide with the times” in order to change them.
At other times, in the startling intimacy of the 939-seat theater (Mr. Springsteen often plays stadiums
that are vastly larger) and with the help of Brian Ronan’s you-are-there sound design, “Springsteen on Broadway” seems like a radio monodrama broadcast from the deepest interior of a single troubled soul.
Even less does it try to be a feel-good Broadway book musical or a slick, whitewashed jukebox like “Jersey Boys.”
Rather, “Springsteen on Broadway” is a painful if thrilling summing-up at 68: a major statement about a life’s work, but also a major revision of it.
There have been many such masks over the years — mama’s boy, loner, stadium stud, Woody
Guthrie — each developed through songs that would seem to cancel each other out.
That’s why the show’s version of “Dancing in the Dark” admits no clapping; sung at a slower-than-usual tempo,
and accompanied only by Mr. Springsteen on acoustic guitar, it is no longer the casual invitation to sex it seemed to be in its first incarnation.