Maybe "scandal theater" it's just more interesting when you don't live in the country that got torched by the scandal?
Against all odds, a musical based on the Enron accounting scandal has been bringing down the house and receiving rave reviews in the U.K. As previously
discussed here, the play's success led its producers to arrange for a run on Broadway in the U.S. this spring, and sparked a “high six-figure deal” by Columbia Pictures to acquire the screen rights to “Enron” for a feature length drama.
Well, it turns out that not unlike the real-life Enron story, exuberance and acclaim has now turned to failure in the U.S.. The Times Online
reports that earlier this week, the play's "producers agreed to close the $3 million show this Sunday, less than a fortnight after it opened." Matthew Byam Shaw, one of the play's disappointed producers, said the play was "confusing and upsetting conservative Broadway audiences." Critics did not take to the play as hoped, the Times Online reports, perhaps due to "resentment at the presumption of British theatre folk tackling an American tragedy (and alluding on an American stage to the September 11 attacks)."
The play continues to thrive in London, however, and will soon open in Australia, as well. As for the U.S. experiment, Shaw said that “[o]ccasionally you get a punch on the nose, and you just have to take it.”