COVER FEATURE
The end of the year hype is practically over. We’ve suffered through a cold blast of calculated movie technology with Tom Cruise’s new “Mission Impossible” installment. Cruise’s alpha male stunts in the film are impressive but if you want real exhilaration it would have had to be a pair of tickets to Hugh Jackman’s “Back on Broadway” concert show at the Broadhurst Theatre that is just winding up its run. Cruise has become an amalgamation of the contemporary movie hero; all teeth and no bite. Jackman on the other-hand has an overwhelming charisma and a good-natured affability that catapults him far greater distances than any of the mechanical monstrosities working in high-octane movies today.
Forget 3-D when you are in the theatre when Hugh Jackman makes an entrance or exit for that matter. The guy had just left his mark on the box-office with his “Real Steel” movie this past October. The film was sort of a “Rocky-Meets-Transformers” but people turned-out because of Jackman’s ongoing “X-Men” stint as “Wolverine. Jackman has a way of turning fancy FX into warm and winning human emotions. Granted, “Real Steel” has its metallic moments but Hugh is the real deal no matter what role he signs up for. There’s a glimmer of authenticity in his eyes as his square jaw fills the big screen. And his performance is all heart but no-less the he-man that his fans have come to clamor for.
“Hugh Jackman Back On Broadway” has all the elements of a love fest and none of the drawbacks. Jackman is suave without being showy and entertaining without being too cloying. When he sings you understand why he won the Tony for “Boy From Oz”; the show which he portrayed Peter Allen. Then there is the gay thing. Sometimes audience tend to blur the lines with their showbiz idols; they see Jackman as Wolverine or when he did his Tony winning turn as Allen in “Oz” as gay. But for a man’s man (as Jackman has been described by his fans) he simply eschews any sort of narrow judgment or contrived categorization. He simply derives pleasure by being anything you think he is and he allows your imagination to run wild without boundaries. In essence Jackman has evolved into the perfect male specimen complete with raw emotions and unbridled bravura.
Chairman of the Schubert Organization, Phillip J. Smith, has compared Jackman’s performances at The Broadhurst to those of Judy Garland’s when she appeared at The Palace. There’s no effeminate putdown intended by Smith he simply remembers Garland’s hold on audiences and their adulation. Too bad poor Judy couldn’t have raked in the kinds of numbers that Hugh is doing. His concert series has earned millions and has given The Great White Way a much needed shot in the arm. In fact people can be heard sniping outside the theatre before curtain time “what recession?”
Jackman isn’t just the Entertainer of the Year, he is the entertainer of a lifetime. He’s the stuff that legends are made of and then some. His congenial manner with fans is particularly appealing. For someone who goes from Wolverine to Peter Allen and back to Wolverine he has earned a right to be a bit cheeky. But because he knows what matters, and he understands what a great payoff really is, he reigns in the pomp and circumstance and is content to be everyone’s vision of “a nice guy.” For that we are fortunate to experience such greatness in our time.