There is hazy dividing line in live performance between artistic endeavor and entertainment. The movies have faced this down and now the term Disnification is part of the mainstream lexicon. Art house film is differentiated from block buster styles. In live theater, especially in the musical theater genre the same dumbing down has been taking place.
Goodman's current production of Million Dollar Quartet feels like entertainment rather than art. Its Wednesday evening performance had the feel of a live concert due in part to the enthusiasm of a considerably older audience who's memories of Cash, Lewis, Perkins and Presley pre-date my own arrival on the planet. Although the show is loosely constructed as a musical with a thin dramatic movement forward which ends in the talent stable at Sun Records turning over (except for Jerry Lee), it's essentially a vehicle for covering classic rock and roll songs a la Jersey Boys, Altar Boyz and that entire genre.
I'm curious how much influence as exerted by an audience can change an experience. What is the tipping point for when a show is intended to mimick a live concert and when it becomes the live concert? The show's construction included an 'impromptu' encore to give the feel of a piece unstaged, but the "audience went wild" was something of an understatement. They wanted to be at a concert, they settled for a re-enactment.
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