(cont)
Let’s start with the good.
First of all, the venue. The Met is a truly magnificent place. The restoration is stunning, the sound pristine. I found the staff to be friendly and helpful. (How often can you say that about a concert venue?) And not standing in line all night for drinks is a bonus. They’ve really got this figured out.
Madonna herself? She still has it. Her voice was solid. Even luminous at times, thanks in no small part to her team of engineers. And though it was obvious that she was being physically cautious due to recent injuries, the old gal still has moves and uses them to great effect.
She clearly subscribes to the practice of surrounding herself with excellence, because the dancers and musicians who performed with her all exuded it, from the choir to the all-female Orquestra Batukadeiras from Portugal to the many other embarrassingly talented people who took to the stage on Saturday night.
Finally, while I agree that the no-phone policy can be annoying in one sense, watching Madonna without a sea of illuminated screens and distracted fans definitely outweighs any annoyance that comes with being detached from your phone. Banning phones allowed all of us to witness the theater of Madonna in the way that she intended.
Alas, the theater of Madonna just doesn’t work as a piece of theater, and great theater is clearly what she is trying to achieve.
The main problem, I think, is Madonna.
If you look at the credits for the Madame X Tour, you’ll see that the show was created and directed by, yep, Madonna. But what the show actually needs is a real director, some discretion, and somebody who can keep things on track.
I don’t know exactly what time the show began. Curtains were supposed to go up at 10:30 p.m. At some point around 11 p.m., an announcer said that the show was delayed due to technical difficulties (a dubious claim), eliciting groans from audience members. A friend in attendance who was wearing an actual watch later told me that Madonna went on shortly after 11:30 p.m. She played until close to 2 a.m. People were pissed. Exhausted. I saw a lot of people leaving well before the show was over, including one music writer who had been taking notes earlier in the night.
The show is simply too long. And, I’m sorry, Madonna, I love you. I really do. But the late-starting thing is utter bullshit. Get over yourself.
There is too much material — some of it straight-up filler — and it is presented in such a meandering way, that any sense of flow, arc, or climax was continuously undermined, robbing the evening of impact. This is why you hire a director and yield all that control you’ve been used to for decades.
That director would probably chop the show into two sets and order it in such a way that the audience gets the message — well, in this case, messages — that you are trying to communicate. A great director could transform the show from a concert with some really cool theatrical elements into an evening of beautiful theater.
Madonna on Broadway. It can happen.
As for you, prospective audience member, if you’re sitting there wondering whether you should go see Madonna’s remaining Madame X shows at the Met in Philly — or in Miami, if you’re lucky enough to be there next week — the answer is maybe.
If you are a huge Madonna fan and have never missed a tour and have actually bought all the new albums she’s released over the years, then you must most definitely go see Madonna. Yes. A thousand times yes. It’s a flawed show, but it’s also like nothing she’s ever done before.
