TONY AWARDS: LEADER OF THE PACK IT ISN’T : Broadway Puts On a Happy Face, but Can’t Conceal Disappointing Season

“Stay tuned for an incredible celebration of the New York theater’s finest talents . . . . “

Van Johnson, one of the New York theater’s finest talents? Juliet Prowse? Rex Smith? Susan Anton?

Well, for your information, Mr. Theater Snob, Anton did “Hurlyburly” on Broadway this very season. Anyway, who’s counting? It’s all part of the hype, and producer Alexander Cohen has never pretended that the Tony Awards broadcast was anything but hype: a long promo for the Broadway theater, put into terms that the simple folks out there in ratings-land can understand.

As usual, this year’s Tony Awards show suggested the kind of Sunday-evening musical variety show that Mom and Dad used to watch on the old Philco, now and then interrupted for an award. The dancers were skinnier and barer than they used to be, but the dance patterns much the same--and many of the songs the same, too. “If They Could See Me Now.” “I Still Get Jealous.” “The Party’s Over.” “People (Who Need People).”

Nostalgia was the theme--as when is it not, with the Tony Awards? Mary Martin reprised “Never-Never Land” and gave a special Tony to her old friend Yul Brynner, who modestly thanked himself for his success. (Other winners tended to thank their agents and God.) Rex Harrison came out, without the anticipated Claudette Colbert, unfortunately. Jim Dale reminded us that 1958-59 was a “knockout season for musicals.”

Plainly 1984-85 was not. There were only three selections from current musicals, and the excerpts from “Grind” and “Leader of the Pack” did not inspire anyone in ratings-land to grab his or her phone and call Ticketron on the 800 line. “Grind” came off like a bad copy of “Gypsy” (which was also reprised). “Leader of the Pack” looked like a bad original for “Grease.”

With competition like that, how could “Big River” lose? At last--a musical not about show business. And director Des MacAnuff remembered to mention that the show was “born and bred” outside the Broadway system, specifically at Boston’s American Repertory Theatre and the La Jolla Playhouse. Was anybody listening when “Big River’s” producer, Rocco Landesman, mentioned how hard it was to bring “new blood” to Broadway?

Those accepting awards this year tended to put an edge on their remarks, suggesting that Broadway’s artists want to know why each season sees fewer and fewer shows (only 30 this year) at higher and higher prices (approaching $50.)

Stockard Channing, who won for her role in “Joe Egg,” spoke on behalf of her fellow actors who “have not been able to survive the rigorous economic and critical climate of the Broadway theater.” Derek Jacobi thanked his vocal coach for helping him to “survive in the Gershwin”--a much too large house for the delicate “Much Ado About Nothing.”

Even the pleasantries seemed unsettling, like something you’d say to a friend in the hospital. Jackie Gleason pointed to the unusual number of fine “reproductions” (revivals) seen on Broadway this season, bringing up the question: Why so few originals? Producer Emanuel Azenberg lauded his partner Neil Simon for having created “hundreds of thousands of employment jobs” in the last 25 years, and some in the audience must have thought, “My God, what if Simon hadn’t come along?”

Though not overflowing with program material, producer Cohen didn’t have time to put on camera the Tony award for an outstanding resident theater. (This year it went to Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater.) But there was time to pay tribute to the New York State Council of the Arts, which was credited “for bringing professional theater to people all over the United States.” To Schenectady, perhaps.

Unless listening very carefully, you wouldn’t have gathered that there already is professional theater all over the United States: that resident theater grossed $227 million last season, exactly the same as Broadway. That’s understandable. A tourist promotion doesn’t tell the folks what they have available at home. But the Tonys don’t even give the tourist an idea of the wealth of the New York theater. Too bad. A sample from a little Off- Broadway musical named “Kuni-Leml” might have added some zip to the show.

The viewer might also have liked to see scenes from the nonmusical plays competing for a Tony. If “Hurlyburly” or “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” or “As Is” would have been a little tough for home consumption, how about “Biloxi Blues”? But here again the Iron Law of the Box, as interpreted by Cohen, prevails. People want to see singing and dancing on awards shows--not drama, for God’s sake.

So the only acting seen on this theatrical night-of-all-nights was a CBS promo for “The Young and Restless.” Compare the TV broadcast of the Olivier Awards in London, where it’s assumed that the home viewer might just be interested in knowing what some of the plays up for nomination are about. If Broadway doesn’t have that kind of faith in spoken drama, who will?

The resident theaters. They’ve already demonstrated that faith, and it’s high time for an annual show (not necessarily an awards show) that covers the whole range of the American theater, not just the 35 houses around Times Square.

Still, you can’t gainsay Broadway expertise. As a variety show, the Tony Awards moved right along--much faster than the Oscars and more humanly than the Grammys, where everybody seems high on the odor of platinum. Theater, even the Broadway theater, remains more of a family than an industry, and it was great to see Aunt Chita show the kids how to do it in “Evita.”

Nor was the show totally stuck in the past. Besides such Now performers as Susan Anton, we got to hear songs from the shows that composers Cy Coleman, Jule Styne and Andrew Lloyd Webber are currently working on. Coleman’s is about a Broadway musical that closes out of town. You wonder about these people.