Taboo Boo

19 January 2003


"Taboo" Folds on Broadway, Misused Talent

Boy George and Rosie O'Donnell working together in a show that was nominated for 4 Olivier awards should have been a recipe for success on Broadway. It wasn't. The news last week was that "Taboo" will close in New York on February 8 -- for want of a leader.

Much has been said about the show not translating into American theatre; Boy George is not the matinee ladies' cup of tea. Indeed. And the show, which chronicles the Boy's relationship with fashion designer Leigh Bowery in London during the early 1980s, played in London in a smallish nightclub not a full-blown theatre as on the Great White Way.

The score, written by Boy George, is solid and for any carrying a soft spot for the New Romantic Age of 1980-1984 (Steve Strange, Marilyn, Simon LeBon as a brunette), borders of brilliant. Euan Morton, who plays Boy George, lost the best actor Olivier to Alex Jennings in a revival of "My Fair Lady" -- having taken the Higgins role from Jonathan Pryce; in other words, he's a damn fine actor. Chris Renshaw, who directed the play in London, got the same job on the left side of the Atlantic, and it was not his first job in New York. Rosie O'Donnell, movie star and TV talk show host, served as producer.

So why did the show fail? It seems to be a case of people being asked to do things they either did not have the ability, time or the energy to execute. Boy George is not as good an actor as Mr. Morton (never claimed he was), but is deficiency was spotlighted against the co-star's talent. The New York media leapt on that. Mr. Renshaw did have some success directing "The King and I", but after being fired for erratic behavior during his stint running the show "High Society," he is not popular in the narrow world of Broadway. And regrettably, Ms. O'Donnell had a legal battle going on over the magazine to which she had lent her name while the show was in rehearsals.

One wishes the show had taken off. Boy George, despite drug addiction and every other quirk, remains one of the most vocally interesting singers from the 1980s. Ms. O'Donnell may now be shy of producing on Broadway (this was her first attempt, and there are very few well-off people who care as much about the theatre as she. Messrs. Morton and Renshaw still have careers ahead of them, but putting such effort into a failure always hurts. But it seems that good theatre isn't easy.

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