The Fat Lady's Nowhere Close to Singing

Broadway got a new long-running champion on Monday night, as The Phantom of the Opera knocked out Cats to take the new top spot with 7,486 performances. I guess Andrew Lloyd Webber can't feel too bad about losing the crown for Cats because he gets to keep it for Phantom. I almost wasn't going to write this post, because I'm not a fan of Phantom--or Webber, for that matter--but I succumbed, because I suppose it's significant. It's been chic for quite some time to dis Andrew Lloyd Webber, but I want it on the record that I was a Phantom detractor from the very beginning. I had friends who were hugely into the show when it opened in New York (it had already been playing in London, so it was a known quantity), and they played the CD incessantly. I didn't find it a terribly likable score the first time I heard it, but to hear it over and over made me sour towards it all the more. Oh, well. Broadway can produce what it wants, and it's hard enough to get a hit, I guess if people will come at all you have to give them what they want to see. And for some reason, they still want to see Phantom, which continues to go strong and shows no sign of waning. God only knows why. Mark Evanier wishes he "knew more than a few people who liked it." I can't even make that concession.