Stomp. Tap Dogs. Rudi Stern's Theater of Light. Thwak.
What do these past and present shows have in common? They are or were very popular off-Broadway attractions that never moved to Broadway houses.
Audiences and producers presumably knew they were a novelty of sorts. A choice distraction from the norm but nothing that made you dig too deep. Now unnecessarily clogging one of Broadway's largest venues (the Broadway Theater, last home to Miss Saigon) is Blast!, perhaps the sorriest excuse for a musical yet seen in this day and age. The show's two hours are composed of a hailstorm of nicely built, attractive young college students parading their instruments (no pun intended) to the tune of, well, nothing. Oh sure, there's music throughout (everything from Ravel to Sondheim), but the makers have absolutely no idea why musicals matter, what about them makes us respond.
Blast! is an insult to theater lovers, in part because there's nothing "theater" about it. There's no story, which is fine, but the vignettes are painfully banal and endlessly uninventive. Essentially one flashy percussive eruption after another, with elements of dance and song thrown in, it resembles "Stomp in Vegas, especially in its relentlessly literal-minded use of color (spelled out for you numerous times in case you're a complete idiot) and it non-desire to be anything more than a mindless diversion. My question is: why does this belong on Broadway? The show seems created by and designed for tourists with no desire but to watch some good-looking kids clutter a stage, see some lights flash, and watch drums played ways that you never saw Max Weinberg do it before. I will confess that the young cast works hard, but no one else on this production did; the choreography (by three people, no less) is disorderly and redundant and never makes any sense with the music accompanying it; and the direction is practically non-existent. It resembles a nicely-appointed grammar-school talent show, where a few people throw a baton and -- wait, get this! They catch it!
Blast! is probably the most disheartening show of the season, because it compacts the idea that Broadway entertainment is only escapist and shouldn't aspire to any other level. Even more depressing is that's the way people seem to want it. The remarkable musical, A Class Act, is literally dying four blocks away (with a reported 23 percent attendance rate), a show that provides endless emotional satisfaction. That an advertisement-masquerading-as-a-show like Blast! is taking any audience away from such work is really, really sad.
