Sweet clarity

THE Big Story of the Broadway season, which will be celebrated tonight at the 57th annual Tony Awards, demonstrates the special delirium of the Great White Way: Consider Christina Applegate and “Sweet Charity,” the musical revival that has been revived more times on the way to its opening last month than a heart patient on “ER.”

A star’s broken foot, lukewarm reviews, tepid box office and an official closing. Yet “Sweet Charity” still managed to emerge from these travails to open on Broadway last month, thanks to the plucky Applegate. Not only did she hobble back into the show but she reportedly marshaled backers to pony up a third of an additional $1.5 million needed to get to opening night.

Cheers, tears, flowers, ovations. Tony nominations for the show and its star. The kind of show-must-go-on story Broadway loves. But was it worth it?

Given that the show has a comparatively small advance -- $2 million -- the producers now risk losing $9 million (rather than the reported $7.5 million had the show remained closed.) It seems the investors’ additional money might have been better spent at the Fandango Ballroom, where Charity and her friends ply their trade as “dance hall hostesses.” Their come-on seems as directed toward today’s Broadway investor as to their marks: “The minute you walked in the joint / I could see you were a man of distinction / A real big spender! Good-looking, so refined / Say, wouldn’t you like to know / What’s going on in my mind?”

What follows is a tip sheet offering some answers to that question, at least as it applies to this delightfully deranged season:

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God wanted an Equity card; don’t settle for a stand-in

“When in doubt, punt to God” became the mantra of more than one writer, recalling the ancient theatrical device deus ex machina, in which the gods descend to tie up all the messy plot points. Suddenly, God was everywhere -- even off-Broadway. He was summoned by Billy Crystal for a poker game in “700 Sundays,” during which the comedian calls his bluff. (What? God can’t see Billy’s cards?) In “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” Jesus makes a personal appearance to remind a contestant that “This is not the sort of thing I care very much about, Marcy.” But God really earns his Equity card in “Spamalot”: Whenever King Arthur gets flummoxed, he can count on the Divine One as his show doctor. After God helps Arthur out of one sticky wicket, the king thanks him for his good idea. In response, God (John Cleese, actually) booms, “Of course it’s a good idea, you silly twit! I’m God. Jesus!”

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Oscar winners need not apply

Tony nominators appeared to yank the welcome mat from under a number of movie stars, showing the back of their hands to Denzel Washington (“Julius Caesar”), Edie Falco (“ ‘night, Mother”), Jeff Goldblum (“The Pillowman”), David Hyde Pierce (“Spamalot”), Jessica Lange and Christian Slater (“The Glass Menagerie”) and John C. Reilly and Natasha Richardson (“A Streetcar Named Desire”). Washington and Lange couldn’t muster up Tony nods, but we’re pretty sure they can act, since they’ve each won two Oscars.

Part of the reason, surely, was strong competition, including a few Hollywood names. One could hardly quibble, for example, with any of the leading actor in a play nominees: James Earl Jones (“On Golden Pond”), Brian F. O’Byrne (“Doubt”), Billy Crudup (“The Pillowman”), Bill Irwin (“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”) and Philip Bosco (“Twelve Angry Men”). But Broadway has always had an ambivalent attitude toward Hollywood stars, like the wallflower who suddenly gets attention from the Big Man on Campus, only to wonder if she’ll be bored on the date.

The one name who set the box office afire -- getting this season’s Hugh Jackman Award -- is Crystal, whose “700 Sundays” has a lock on best special theatrical event (too bad, Whoopi Goldberg, Dame Edna and Mario Cantone). There was talk early on that the producers of “700 Sundays” might petition the Tony Administration Committee to consider it for best play, thereby qualifying Crystal for Tonys as both writer and actor. He just might have lost out altogether if they had. Defying God is one thing, testing the Tony nominators quite another.

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Les parents terribles

Moms and dads who irrevocably scar their children have long been a dramatic staple. But this season’s crop on Broadway could keep Children’s Services busy for decades.

The parents in “The Pillowman,” who torture and mutilate one son to inspire creativity in the other, win the toxic prize hands down. That haranguing harridan Amanda Wingfield of “The Glass Menagerie, played by Lange, made an appearance. Jones, though a loving spouse, is a less-than-ideal dad in “On Golden Pond.” And even “Doubt” had a Mother Superior in Cherry Jones as relentless as Glenn Close in “Fatal Attraction” and just as destructive.

Parenthood got a reprieve in such sugary shows as “Little Women,” “La Cage aux Folles” and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.” Indeed, the treacle got so sticky in the last that one couldn’t be blamed for rooting for the child-phobic Baroness Bomburst (the wonderfully villainous Jan Maxwell in a Tony-nominated performance).

But by and large, Broadway echoed a message to be found in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”: Unless you’re prepared to nurture those cute little balls-and-chains for the rest of your everlasting days, it’s best to keep them imaginary.

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Breaking -- make that smashing -- the fourth wall

Musical theater used to be an otherworldly place where people unapologetically broke out into song and dance. But ever since Ulla in “The Producers” innocently queried, “Why Bloom go so far down stage right?,” it has become commonplace to shatter the fourth wall -- that is, letting you know that we know that you know this isn’t real.

In “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,” an “usher” rushes down the aisle to join the ensemble in a torch song while, later, featured performer Joanna Gleason blithely promises, “I’m sure I’ll be of use to somebody in the second act.”

In “Light in the Piazza,” extended scenes go on only in Italian, leaving the audience bewildered. At one point, an Italian matriarch suddenly turns to the audience and says, “I don’t speak English, but I have to tell you what’s going on.” The “Spelling Bee” creators cleverly went the “Cabaret” Kit Kat Club route, not only turning the theater audience into the audience for the contest but enlisting some to compete (giving them words like “abulia” or “gardyloo” to spell to hook them off the stage after they’d served their purpose).

And the knights of “Spamalot” shamelessly drove a battering ram through the fourth wall in their pursuit of the Holy Grail. When a Middle Ages version of MapQuest fails, ask the audience for directions.

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Brits go home

After seasons of being hailed as nearly infallible, English directors reinterpreting American classics drew skeptical reappraisal. David Leveaux (“The Glass Menagerie”) and Edward Hall (“A Streetcar Named Desire”) endured most of the brickbats. Anthony Page’s production of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” got a passing grade (though no Tony nomination for its director), leaving only John Crowley, who got a nod for Martin McDonagh’s “The Pillowman,” to fly the Union Jack over Broadway.

The biggest disappointment by far was Michael Blakemore’s production of Michael Frayn’s “Democracy,” the tantalizing story of a mole in the office of 1960s German Chancellor Willy Brandt. This National Theatre production was a smash hit in London but flopped in New York, closing before it received its sole Tony nomination for best play. In this case, it was the Yanks who did the Brits in. The American cast utterly failed to deliver the play. Audiences voted “nein.”

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Lost in translation

Also losing something in translation was the revival of “Pacific Overtures,” the acclaimed Amon Miyamoto production of the Stephen Sondheim classic that was presented by an all-Asian cast in Japanese with English subtitles at the Lincoln Center Festival in 2003. With its four Tony nominations and the added boost of Sondheim’s popularity, it could offer a strong challenge to “Sweet Charity” and “La Cage aux Folles” for best revival. But as good as B.D. Wong was as the Narrator, the musical was leached of some of its authentic charms. You haven’t lived until you’ve heard “Someone in a Tree” sung entirely in Japanese. Come to think of it, maybe the entire production of “Light in the Piazza,” featuring Adam Guettel’s sublime songs, should have been done in Italian with English subtitles.

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Death knell of the jukebox musical

Those bells tolling this season were for that hybrid of ready-made scores wrapped around a jerry-built book, the spawn of “Mamma Mia!,” the global billion-dollar ABBA phenomenon, and the Billy Joel dance hit “Movin’ Out.” That’s premature, of course. But the follow-up did not bode well. The New York Times damned “Good Vibrations,” a short-lived Beach Boys California fable, as a “singing headache of a musical,” while the still-running “All Shook Up,” a Shakespearean-cum-’50s movie parody based on Elvis Presley hits, earned better reviews but was shut out of Tony nominations. Into this environment this summer comes “Lennon,” the troubled musical featuring the songs of John Lennon. Next fall comes the likable “Jersey Boys,” the Four Seasons bio-play that was a hit in La Jolla last year. Looks like producers of the latter, which include those who ushered in “Good Vibrations,” will just have to “Hang on, hang on....”

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How Tony voters decide

Two producers, both Tony voters, recently discussed the strategy of casting ballots on what can be a family affair, given the cohesiveness of the Broadway community. Said one: “First, you vote for yourself. Second, you vote against your enemies. Third, you vote for your friends. And fourth, you vote for quality.” To which his colleague responded, “You missed one: Voting against your friends.”

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To enjoy the program, begin with the program

Nowadays, the fun of attending a Broadway show often begins when you open the Playbill. The program for “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” includes among its producers such long-dead impresarios as David Belasco and Florenz Ziegfeld. The Playbill for “Spamalot” has a full page of credits for a Finnish musical, “Elk,” which figures in the opening number of the show (don’t ask).

In the official “Spamalot” souvenir program -- offered in the theater’s “Rippey-offey Shoppe” -- there are song titles for the mock musical, including “These Little Finns Remind Me of You” and “I Hear Your Nokia But I Can’t Come In.” The con is on even before the curtain rises.

Broadway had quite a few con men (and women) this season. The most engaging of them didn’t even try to hide that they were picking our pockets. And to those who it did most masterfully, audiences were more than willing, eager in fact, to be taken -- for the ride.