NBC's live presentation of The Wiz seems to be getting mostly rave reviews this morning. I tried to love it. Oh, how I tried. The performers were well-selected — especially David Alan Grier, who was outstanding — and you have to respect the effort and planning and rehearsal time that went into doing this live with no big mistakes. But I think I just don't like this show that much. It's a cute twist on The Wizard of Oz…but then I don't like The Wizard of Oz that much and yes, I know that's heresy to some.
I think part of the problem I had with last night's presentation is the same problem I had with the live productions of Peter Pan and The Sound of Music. They're not television shows and they're not live theater. The "live" part is mitigated by the feeling that they're shot in a warehouse somewhere. Material that was designed to be performed before a live audience is performed to silence: No laughter, no applause.
Live theater — and this is especially true with musical comedy — is meant to be an interactive experience. The presence of the live audience contributes to the performance because the actors are playing to someone. The sense they get of the audience — whether communicated by laughing, clapping, silence, coughing or the unwrapping of candies — informs and alters the performances.
Not in these shows. The actors are playing to cameras that make no response.
Plays are, of course, done on TV all the time in front of live audiences. Almost all the ones on PBS on shows like Live at Lincoln Center are a matter of taking cameras into theaters and recording both the show and the audience. That's one difference. Another is that when you watched Act One or Driving Miss Daisy or any of those on PBS, you were watching performances that had been done and honed in front of live audiences, dozens if not hundreds of times before they were shot for television. The performers in The Wiz never did that material in front of anyone but stage crews. One can only wonder how much better they would have been if they'd had that.
So these shows just plain have an empty feeling to me. When they did the "Brand New Day" number last night, it just cried out for an audience to be clapping along and stomping their feet and at the end, the dancers and actors struck poses to cue and receive wild applause. But there was no wild applause. TV cameras and stagehands don't applaud.
I'm glad they're doing these shows if only because maybe they'll prompt more people to go see theater in its natural habitat. If they do, they're going to discover it's a lot like sex. It can be fine when you're all alone but it's even better with someone next to you. Or under you. Or at least in the same room.