Unmusical theater

In another example of how the Times is busting with so much content they let lie things other papers would blow up, Jesse Green spoke with theater historian Ethan Mordenn for a piece that wound up being headlined Tolstoy Was Right: Flop Musicals Are All Unique, but, really, could've been called something else:

Q. So instead he’s a sellout movie producer.

A. Nowadays a Moss Hart would want to be Aaron Sorkin because no play on Broadway is as interesting as “The West Wing.” It’s the best dramatic writing in the last 30 years.

Q. And is that all right with you?

A. No. But no one’s asking me. When Cool came in, it was the end of theater. Cool is not eloquent. Cool is: “What are you rebelling against?” “What have you got?” If you can say that, then theater is dead, because theater is moral, it’s glamorous, it’s about being smart, it’s about sophisticated gay people helping the heteros understand that they’re stupid and boring.

Q. This is, no doubt, an example of your famous overstatement.

A. Well, that’s gay people’s role in the culture, isn’t it? Now, though, they’re liberated from that role. They can be real boys; they don’t have to know about Auntie Mame. They still have an ironic perspective on the world because they grew up pretending to be straight. But they don’t have what I call the Knowledge.

Well, Mordenn does have a discerning eye when it comes to the West Wing.