THE ARBITER OF TASTE IN ACTION.

THE ARBITER OF TASTE IN ACTION. Apparently the critics in Chicago hated THE PIRATE QUEEN and the critics in New York also hate it. So it’s no surprise that The New York Times hated it. The reasons given by the Times reviewer in this review for dismissing the show are interesting in view of the Times’s self-proclaimed position as “the central arbiter of taste and culture in New York City.” The first reason given reflects the belief that limiting choices is good: There is already a better show using the “same historic-epic formula” running on Broadway (the revival of LES MISERABLES). Apparently one is enough. Note that this approach differs from the movies, where if a movie is successful, there will be sequels and imitations following after. And it differs from Amazon’s approach to selling books (“Readers who liked X also liked….”). The second reason given is that the music is out of fashion. “Timing is against this musical in a more significant sense as well. ‘The Pirate Queen’ registers as a relic of a long-gone era, and I don’t mean the 1500s. The big-sound, big-cast show pioneered by Messrs. Boublil and Schönberg is now as much a throwback to the 1980s as big hair and big shoulders.” One of the dangers of being an arbiter of taste is that you become instead an arbiter of fashion, an arbiter of what’s in and what’s out. Revivals are by definition unfashionable and that may be one reason there are so few of them in New York.