I’m going to be honest: I was giddy at the prospect of Hugh Jackman hosting the Academy Awards last night. Hugh and host go together like song and dance, and I knew that I would get equal proportions of both. Happily, Mr. Jackman did not disappoint.
In case you missed the fantastically fun opening number, here it is in all of Hollywood-mocking glory (fast forward to about 2 minutes in to bypass the non-musical portion):
Who knew Anne Hathaway could (kind-of) sing? (Give her another few months, and I’m sure we’ll see her starring in a Broadway revival of My Fair Lady or something equally ill-fitting). But the real joy here is Jackman: the consummate musical theatre performer (Oklahoma! and The Boy From Oz are among his theatrical credits), is utterly charming in his spirited and jokey medley of the Best Feature Film nominees. It was all in good fun, and even Kate Winslet had to laugh at his space-agey and robotic admission: “The Reader…I haven’t seen The Reader. I was going to see it later but I fell behind; my Batmobile took longer than I thought to design..” No, not the most sophisticated of lyrics, but who said the Oscars were…sophisticated? (Yep, that’s the joke there.)
Clearly Jackman didn’t come up with this all on his own; the masterminds behind this strangely theatrical ceremony were none other than the director and producer of the 2006 film, Dreamgirls: Bill Condon and Laurence Mark. Depending on your view of last night’s festivities — and I’ve been hearing both high praise, as well as venomous “this was the worst Oscars EVER!”– you can thank or blame these two in kind.
In a year of the stage play-turned-big-screen-blockbuster (Frost/Nixon, Doubt), it doesn’t seem all that strange that Condon and Mark should wish to showcase the film year’s largely theatrical roots. What started off as a clever and stylish way to showcase nominees, however, quickly turned into one embarassing theatrical joke:
Jackman follows up his enthusiastic declaration that “The musical is back!” (I wasn’t aware that it had ever left) with awkward staged snippets from such artistic gems of the musical theatre cannon as Grease!, Hairspray, and Mama Mia! (basically, if it has a “!” in the title, it was covered). Joining him in this baffling spectacle were Beyoncé, High School Musical sweethearts Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens, and Mama Mia! stars, Amanda Seyfried and Dominic Cooper, in what amounted to one of the most baffling and uncomfortable spectacles of the night. (Does it surprise anyone that Baz Luhrmann was behind that messy display of nonsensical song and dance? No? I didn’t think so). Why was this number necessary? Did someone really think that the cinematic adaptation of Mama Mia! was reviving (musical) theatre in some way? How and why did this number even happen?
It still surprises me that in a time when film stars are flocking to the stage — such as the likes of Mary Louise Parker, Jane Fonda, Jeremy Irons, and Hope Davis, many of whom have respected theatre backgrounds — that theatre is made such a blatant joke of — and so often, and even by those who make theatre. What’s even more startling is the performers’ unawareness of the joke. Alas, the joke was entirely on them: the camera’s quick sweep of the Kodak’s starry audience showed that the majority wished the musical to have stayed wherever it had presumably disappeared to before Pierce Brosnan’s painful yodel (as one of Streep’s three love interests in Mama Mia!) recovered it.
While a logical explanation for the night’s second musical number will probably never surface, Mark and Condon thankfully had one inspired idea for the evening: if theatre ever is actually in need of saving, the charming Hugh Jackman is just the top-hat-sportin’, toe-tappin’ man to do it. Even if he has to awkwardly grind against the world’s biggest — and most sequined — pop music star while doing it.
