Bring back the 'feel bad' musical

I mean I think there are two different issues here, and one is that a lot of theatre critics (as Sondheim often lamented) are not specialists so they often don't know what they talk about when they review musicals. We had an exemple of that in most reviews of the Donmar production of Next to Normal. The majority of musicals have always been musical comedies and – with some exceptions – the West End in particular has always leaned towards lighter musicals. I am not talking about the mock grand operas like Phantom or Les Miz, but musicals for grown-ups (except for Sondheim's) have always had a harder time in London, and shows with darker or more delicate themes like Spring Awakening or Rent were huge flops.

Sondheim, Kander & Ebb, Yeston were a bit of an exception even in their days. Cabaret competed for the Tony Award for Best Musical against I Do! I Do!, Walking Happy, and The Apple Tree, all musical comedies. West Side Story lost to The Music Man, Follies lost to Two Gentlemen of Verona, Sunday in the Park with George lost to La Cage aux Folles, all musical comedies.

Besides, it's factually not true all new writing is "feel good". In the past fifteen years or so we had shows like Next to Normal, A Strange Loop, Hadestown, Fun Home, The Band's Visit etc, just to name the ones that received major critical recognition and awards. With the exception of Hadestown, none of them did particularly well at the box office. It is frustrating that 53 years after Company and almost 80 years after Carousel musicals are still overwhelmingly considered light entertainment, but that's where the money goes. And luckily we have brilliant composers like Jeanine Tesori, David Yazbek, Scott Frankel, Adam Guettel, Dave Molloy, and Jason Robert Brown (who couldn't write a hit to save his own life) writing compelling scores.

You can go and see Rebecca- will make you lose the will to live…