Broadway’s Best At Pops (WGBH) + Show
Business – The Road To Broadway (Genius/Liberation DVD)
Picture: C+/C Sound: C+ Extras: C+ Feature: B-/C+
Is
Broadway in some kind of trouble, and if so, who’s to blame? You can see two different views of Broadway
in two recent DVD releases. Broadway’s Best At Pops is yet another
compilation that shows the best performers and performances, this time with
John Williams conducting with some of the best talent around, including Ethel
Merman, Ray Bolger, Carol Channing, Gregory Hines and Bernadette Peters. Like such compilations we have seen before,
they are rare glances at the kind of work that made the live stage work so
well.
Show Business – The Road To
Broadway is a
recent look at the Great White Way as shows like Wicked, Taboo and Avenue Q take on each other, but now,
it is a more cutthroat town with less showmanship, more crassness and a lack of
warmth that originally put the locale on the map. Maybe the one reason for this is the one
thing not noted in the program, the after-effects of 9/11. However, this is more interested in showing a
somewhat gossipy side complete with stage critics and voters who may or may not
know what they are talking about. Some
may even blame the minimalist, or “cut down cold” approach of the cycle of
Andrew Lloyd Webber hits for this, but is it a sadder look at things at a
fragile time than even the makers might have expected.
The 1.33
X 1 image in both cases have limits, but the older analog NTSC footage on Pops is not as soft as the low-def
digital on Show. The Dolby Digital 2.0 is more monophonic on Pop and barely stereo on Show.
Extras on Pops include
extended performances not seen on TV, DVD-ROM printable selections from the
Boston Pops concert programs and bonus interview footage, while Show offers trailer, promo spots,
DVD-ROM printable study guide, audio commentary by the makers and over an hour
of deleted scenes.
- Nicholas Sheffo
