Bruce Springsteen on Broadway
Boss talks new songs, dialogue for these historic times
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Earlier this summer, Springsteen called in to chat about opening night and the "new" "Springsteen on Broadway". This is the entire conversation, save for some small talk about how it had been so long since this interviewer took a train to New York City that I forgot how to open the train doors between cars.
Q: You tuned it up a little bit, even with Patti (Scialfa) singing "Fire." I thought that was a wonderful moment up there. It almost bookended with the Exciters "Tell Him." It was such a sweet, loving moment up there.
Springsteen: I said let's try to come up with another tune and do something a little different. We tried a few things and it's funny, she said let's do "Fire." I said I don't know but she was really right. She sings it great. She's got that Peggy Lee sort of swagger that she adds to the song and she has to sing on her own a little bit. It's great to hear her voice. I got to give her all the credit for that."
Q: And the way you guys performed it – Patti came out from behind the piano. It was very physical.
The nice thing is she's not playing guitar on it. She plays guitar on "Brilliant Disguise," so on this she gets to sort of be there and it's fun for me and for the two of us.
Q: ("Springsteen on Broadway") was such a success in the first run. I thought it's perfect the way it is, I don't think Mr. Springsteen is going to change anything because it speaks to all times. But you did change a few things, and then after the show I'm thinking 'How could he not with everything that's gone down in the past two years'?
There's been too much history since I've done it last. The past two years have been, what can you say? It just happened very naturally. It's organic, the minute I started rehearsing the show again, things start to change. You begin to go over your spoken sections and other things suggest themselves related to either what's been going on for the last couple of years of your life or in general. So changing is something that happens almost by itself. But you do have to work at it a little bit.
Q: Especially poignant was the performance of "American Skin." As I noted in my stories that happened to Amadou Diallo about 20 years ago, four officers. In Minnesota it was four officers. It's an American tragedy and we're spinning our wheels. But this past summer there was such an awakening and that's reflected on stage I thought.
The Black Lives Matter protests were really encouraging and to see all those young kids out in the street was very inspiring. So it was a song I wrote a long time ago, but it just remains relevant and I found a really nice arrangement for just myself and the guitar. Actually, that was Jon Landau's idea to put it into the show.
Q: Oh wow. This must have been a change right at the last minute, but you kind of made reference to the anti-vaccine protesters who were outside. They were also at the Foo Fighters show (at Madison Square Garden on June 20). It speaks to the uncertainty. People are scared, we feel like we're in the dark, the protesters do. I was speaking to them, they seem like normal people, just scared.
Hundreds of thousands of people died. It can be hard to know what to do. Obviously, I'm in favor of everybody being vaccinated, and that's why the show is the way that it is. Plus, I'm responsible for the safety of my audience. But it's hard, confusing times, so I actually have some feelings for the folks who were outside.
Q: I've lost family members because of COVID and it just seems to be a season of passing. I think that's reflected now in the show with the great "See You in My Dreams." Can you tell me about adding that song to end the night?
That might have been Jon's (Landau) idea also. It's funny, it's only a couple of verses and a chorus — there's not that much to it. But it really packs a punch for its brevity and it really ends the particular story that I'm telling on this leg of this show. It's actually much more appropriate than "Born to Run" was in that spot. It really takes all the ideas in the show and sums them up in that one short piece of music. So it's exciting to play that at the end of the night.
Q: After the show on the train back home, I thought to myself, "Letter to You." I wonder if the play is like a precursor to "Letter to You"? A look back upon on people who touched Mr. Springsteen in his life.
The book ("Born to Run"), the play, the record ("Letter to You") are deeply connected. You could also put in my podcast with President Obama ("Renegades: Born in the USA" on Spotify), that runs in there also. Those things are part of sort of a theme I've been working off of for the past period of time. But the book, the play and the record are all very connected to one another. And the film. Thom Zimny's film ("Bruce Springsteen's Letter to You").
Q: Oh, you turned your situation on Sandy Hook (arrest for DWI, charges were dropped) into the funniest moment in the show, man. Bravo, bravo!
(Laughs) What can I say?
Q: When you spoke about that (on opening night), you were kind of near Gov. Murphy …
(Laughs) I'm sure he took it fine.
Q: Also, I wrote in my piece that you're singing differently and better. I mean you really go into some interesting vocal places, and on (the 2019 album) "Western Stars," too. You really are laying down some wonderful sounds up there.
It's funny, I think my voice actually improved with age. I have more range and it's stronger than it's ever been so I've been really, really fortunate — I'm knocking on wood right now. It just happened to be in really good form over the past weekend, plus I had two nights to sort of warm up for Saturday (June 26) — so it was one of those nice events when we landed on Saturday, it was just the perfect condition to sing. So I had a lot of fun singing that night because my voice was responsive to anything I wanted to do.
Q: Yeah, in the past few years, like on "Western Stars," you had some sweet higher range things. Do you feel performing, just you and your guitar on stage and talking, has kind of let you take your voice, be it speaking or singing, into new and different areas?
Yeah, because there's only one instrument and you're singing. That has to carry all of the emotional information — it's carried in those two elements. They're full, present in your face, and you can really hear every detail of your voice, every nuance of your voice. In a concert, folks are hearing the front 50 or 70 percent of your voice just because of the noise of the band and the way the show is. There's kind of 30 percent getting fogged up in the soup. But when you play just your guitar, 100 percent of your voice is available to the audience and you can carry a lot of emotional information with it. I find that very enjoyable to do.
Q: Hey, bet you early on you would never have imagined being on Broadway, nor that you'd be the savior of Broadway?
Hah, I don't know about that, but I didn't imagine I'd be there. Jon (Landau) suggested it and Patti (Scialfa) sort of seconded his opinion and I'm like, "I don't know, it's summer and I want to go to the beach (laughs)." Because we're going to work a lot next year. But then I had a friend come down and just tip me over the edge and I got excited: "Just do it!" And that was it.
Q: Can I ask: The friend, was that President Barack Obama?
No. (laughs). But he's always in favor of performing this particular show because the first time I did it was at the White House and he kind of suggested the evening I did it at the White House, he said, "Geez, you did that just for us but that should be a show."
Q: Wow – like you said in the play, you've done everything in the quote unquote downtime, including the wonderful radio show ("From My Home to Yours" on SiriusXM's E Street Radio), the podcast, the movie. You haven't taken any time off I guess.
No, I've been lucky. I've found ways to stay busy. I missed all the confusion so I feel very fortunate about that.
Q: I think everybody's who still here, it's a blessing.
Absolutely.
Springsteen on Broadway
Showing Us How Many Lives We Contain
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Two critics on the show’s return — a turning point in live theater and another stage in the rock star’s lifelong evolution.
Bruce Springsteen, whose autobiographical show reopened Broadway, at the St. James Theater last Saturday. The singer is “cracking open his songs,” Jesse Green writes, “cracking open himself.”
Bruce Springsteen, whose autobiographical show reopened Broadway, at the St. James Theater last Saturday. The singer is “cracking open his songs,” Jesse Green writes, “cracking open himself.”Credit…Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
June 30, 2021
When the St. James Theater shut down with the rest of Broadway on March 12, 2020, the show playing there, aptly enough, was “Frozen.”
But 471 days later, the show that just reopened the theater — and Broadway more generally — is a totally different beast. Call “Springsteen on Broadway,” the singer-songwriter’s memoir-concert-ghost story, “Unfrozen,” because what’s playing now is an almost geological transformation of the relentlessly austere work that audiences experienced during its acclaimed run from October 2017 to December 2018.
Jesse Green, the chief theater critic, and Lindsay Zoladz, a pop music critic, saw the show on Tuesday night and reconvened on Wednesday to discuss, among many other things, the way changes of scale — and context — remake a rock artist, even in the theater. These are edited excerpts from their conversation.
JESSE GREEN “Springsteen on Broadway” first played the 939-seat Walter Kerr Theater. Now it’s in a theater with nearly double the capacity. To me, the new version couldn’t be more different from the old one. What about you, Lindsay? I presume you’ve seen Springsteen in venues that accommodate thousands.
LINDSAY ZOLADZ The previous two times I’ve seen Bruce were at Madison Square Garden and an open-air festival in Denmark, but this show still felt remarkably intimate to me. One of the most interesting aspects of the performance was the way it felt like a Broadway production constantly teetering on the edge of becoming a full-on rock concert. For the most part, I think it stayed firmly in the latter category, thanks mostly to Springsteen’s incredible command of the crowd — in thwarting their instincts to sing, shout requests or indulge in other arena-etiquette, he plays the audience like another instrument. But the more the show progressed, and especially when Springsteen brought out his wife, Patti Scialfa, for a pair of fiery duets, the more the atmosphere started to feel like something I haven’t had the chance to experience in over a year: a good, old-fashioned rock show. Jesse, did this feel more like a concert than what you’re used to reviewing? And as someone who saw the initial run in 2017 (I missed it on Broadway but caught it on Netflix), did this performance feel different?
Bruce Springsteen and his wife, Patti Scialfa, at the end of “Springsteen on Broadway” at the St. James Theater.
Bruce Springsteen and his wife, Patti Scialfa, at the end of “Springsteen on Broadway” at the St. James Theater.Credit…Sara Krulwich/The New York Times
GREEN On paper, or at least on the set list, the 2017 show and the 2021 show are nearly identical. Only three of the 15 songs have changed. With Scialfa last night, he performed “Tougher Than the Rest” as before but, instead of “Brilliant Disguise,” followed it with the much less theatrical and more traditionally sexed-up “Fire.” He replaced “Long Walk Home” with “American Skin (41 Shots),” written about the killing of Amadou Diallo in 1999 but here a pointed reference to George Floyd and the many other Black people more recently killed by police officers. And he closed with “I’ll See You in My Dreams,” a quiet, doleful song, instead of the barnburner “Born to Run.” These changes (it’s also 30 minutes longer) made it feel more like a concert to me because it is more varied and topical, acknowledging — as he also did in his rewritten narration — the 15 months we’ve just been through. I’m curious about how his demeanor, which is notably different now, compares with what you’ve seen in larger, more explicitly rock venues.
ZOLADZ I definitely noticed that his stage persona and his interactions with the audience felt different than a traditional Springsteen show — a little more irreverent, a little less focused on performing gratitude and thanks-for-coming-out-tonight earnestness at all costs. He opens with a tongue-in-cheek riff about how he’s revealing to us his rock-star “image”: “I haven’t done it yet,” he responds to the requisite applause, then waits a comic beat: “That’s it.” It seemed like that initial wink freed him up to embody this theatrical character of “Bruce Springsteen,” a slightly different construct than the hard-charging bandleader he’s playing in concert. But the fact that he’s able to calibrate so effectively between these different stage-selves shows what an expert’s grasp he has on his own stage presence.
GREEN Is “stage presence” the same in a theater as in an arena?
ZOLADZ One important difference in the grammar of a rock concert versus a Broadway show: Rock-concert banter is often expected to give at least the illusion of spontaneity (even if a lot of arena shows are just as meticulously staged and rehearsed as any play). Audiences want to feel like something special is happening in their city, on that particular night — there’s no greater concert faux pas than greeting a St. Louis crowd, “Hello, Cleveland!” “Springsteen on Broadway” has obviously been worked and reworked to hit the same beats each evening on the same stage, but through the charismatic kineticism of his performance Springsteen is able to enliven it with an energy that effectively keeps it from feeling canned.
GREEN He reads much of the script — which is already a gloss on “Born to Run,” his 2016 autobiography — from quite visible monitors, yet he is surprisingly adept at the illusion you mention: He plays himself, or a series of selves, with great confidence and skill. When he said he doesn’t understand himself even after 40 years of analysis, he sounded almost like a borscht belt tummler. This joke, true as it may be, would not have fit into the bleak cosmology of the original run, which left me stunned and often in tears; in that version Springsteen seemed to go to great pains to strip away all ingratiation in favor of the dark poetry of his story. Keep in mind that he was performing in the aftermath of the election of Donald J. Trump; he seemed to use that moment as a warning. Now, after 15 months of lockdown and worse, he offers much more comedy amid the severity: He does voices, impersonations and even, at the end, some crowd work. He affects a soothing familiarity, an almost Bidenesque folksiness. (I don’t believe it for a second, but it’s effective.) If his aim, as he says, is to be of “service” to society through his music, the show is his judgment about how that might best be done right now. I enjoyed it as much as the first time, and I found its shift in emphasis — its message that we may live with our ghosts and even draw joy from them — timely and moving; yet the earlier incarnation was, for me, more profound.
ZOLADZ So much of the show is about the power of memory, surviving and bearing witness. One of the most affecting segments is still that bluesy, hollered deconstruction of “Born in the USA,” during which Springsteen pays tribute to two young men who never got to grow old, veterans of his local Jersey Shore rock circuit who were killed in Vietnam. “Springsteen on Broadway” was already a show thoroughly haunted by loss (of his father, his bandmate Clarence Clemons, and his mother’s slow deterioration because of Alzheimer’s), so he didn’t have to change much for its tone to meet this particular American moment. Right now, we’re all coming out of hiding, trying to square our gratitude at surviving with the heavy weight of loss we’ve witnessed. Springsteen is certainly up to the challenge of providing that kind of catharsis, and of reminding survivors their responsibility to honor and eulogize the dead — that is, of course, what “Born in the USA” is all about. In the end, as he recited an “Our Father” in his own idiosyncratic cadence, the show felt not so much like a theatrical performance or a concert as a religious sermon — I certainly heard more than one “Amen.”
GREEN That was a new turn in this iteration. Early on he refers to being “duped” by the church as a child, and basically threatened into a lifelong submission to an unloving institution, yet after taking us through all the terrible contradictions of his childhood in the central New Jersey town of Freehold — that two-syllable oxymoron — and the more rewarding ones of a life in rock, he offers, at 71, in the church’s own words, what can only be called a benediction. I’m not even Roman Catholic and I felt forgiven for my trespasses.
ZOLADZ You mentioned earlier the change in the closing number: Instead of “Born to Run,” it’s “I’ll See You in My Dreams,” from his most recent record. He still opens with the wide-eyed “Growin’ Up,” the second track off his 1973 debut album. And while the set list doesn’t run exactly chronologically, this change underscores the fact that we’re watching not only a character’s coming-of-age, but the long evolution of a songwriter learning how to chronicle his inner experience and the world around him. The show’s bare-bones arrangements allow him to crack these songs open and find new riches inside even the most familiar tunes. I must have heard “Thunder Road” a thousand times in my life — at the risk of sounding basic, it’s probably my favorite Bruce song — but I don’t think it’s ever moved me quite as deeply as it did last night, hearing such a stripped-down rendition that focused on the wistfulness of its lyricism.
GREEN Cracking open his songs, he’s cracking open himself, and in the process showing us how many lives we each contain. I thought of that when entering the St. James, where anti-vaccination protesters have been demonstrating against the theater’s requirement that all audience members be completely immunized. The protesters might be happy to know that almost no one inside wore a mask — except, in a way, Springsteen, whose mask, if it ever comes off, merely reveals another and another.
