Film Friday: Bathtubs Over Broadway
Spoiler Warning: The following contains spoilers for Bathtubs Over Broadway, which is a documentary currently on Netflix. As it is a documentary, I am giving you a spoiler warning for what actually happened in real life and thus calling into question what it a spoiler actually is.
Anyone who has ever read a review on this website, heard me mumbling and humming to myself on the subway, or spoken to me for more than five minutes knows that I love musical theater. I’m fortunate enough to be working on Broadway now, and my girlfriend has worked on Broadway for five years. Suffice it to say I consider myself pretty knowledgeable when it comes to musical theater. I don’t have the hubris to think I am the most knowledgeable person in the world, but I thought I’d heard of just about everything. When I saw the trailer for Bathtubs Over Broadway and realized it was about something I had never heard about, it immediately caught my attention.
The focal point of Bathtubs Over Broadway is Steve Young, a former writer for Late Night with David Letterman, who through a bit about collecting records on the show discovered industrial musicals and all the absurdity they entail. I’ll let words of the website for Mr. Young’s book about the topic, The Wonderful World of Industrial musicals, explain just what they are.
“Once upon a time, when American industry ruled the earth, business and Broadway had a baby. This mutant offspring, glimpsed only at conventions and sales meetings, was the industrial musical. Think Broadway show, except the audience is managers and salesmen, and the songs are about how great it is to be working at the company.”
Did you ever think of a Broadway production about how great plumbing is, how important Citgo’s rebranding was, or the importance of an insurance salesman existed? This documentary shows all three. Actors in these musicals include names known both throughout Broadway history and American culture more broadly: Don Bolles, Martin Shore, and Chita Rivera. It’s hard to put into words the absurdity of seeing so many great theater names doing something so strange. Industrial musicals cost millions and millions of dollars, yet so few know of their story now—this documentary turns an interesting light to them.
Normally the idea of corporate influence on art is broadly considered a negative. Art for money’s sake is the antithesis of “true” art. Bathtubs over Broadway shines a light on the most corporate of corporate art with the nostalgic lens usually reserved for people pining for the “good ol’ days” when art was made for the sake of art. It’s a little jarring if you take a step back to analyze it, so I’d recommend anyone watching the documentary not do that. There isn’t anything particularly problematic about that slant; it’s just unusual. Fortunately, if you try to analyze it too closely, you’ll soon be distracted by people in full body beer bottles dancing on a stage.
I don’t think someone would have to love Broadway to enjoy this story. This is worth a watch for the old video and audio clips alone. If you really have no interest in theater and don’t care much for old marketing nostalgia, then I don’t think you’d get a ton of enjoyment out of this. Even if you don’t watch the movie, I do recommend listening to some of the industrial musical songs that have been loaded onto the internet. Few things can compare to listening to an un-ironic love song to one’s own bathroom.