I went with Bart Dana, Jenny and Marco (alphabetical order, sweeties) to see the closing night performance of Taboo.

Let’s get one thing straight: I don't buy the right-wing conspiracy theory: Taboo closed when it did because everyone who was going to enjoy it had already seen it. Twice. And, if the pit kids in costume and character make up are any indication, Taboo is poised to become the Rocky Horror Show of the 21st Century. So, I ain’t worried about Rosie O’Donnell or George O’Dowd. They’ll be fine.

Taboo seems to have been written by and for the sort of person who would or used to show up at a theatrical production dressed as one of the characters when they are not a paid cast member. It doesn’t want to believe that, while it’s a free country and you can dress however you like, it’s a free country… and I’m allowed to think you’re weird. It doesn’t mean that weird’s a bad thing, but I don’t have to pay you lots of money just to have you show up and be fabulous. So, if you want to be “Broadway” smash hit, you have to appeal to the masses. The masses shop at the Gap. Deal with it: Even in N-Y-C, the population of blue-mohawked, star-spangle-eye-makeuped outcasts from the suburbs of every american town who came to the seedy underbelly of the Uber-Urb to find a place where they can Express Themselves cannot provide sufficient ticket sales to keep a Broadway House open for a year. You have to advertise to a more generic “Broadway” audience. And, once the commercial for a show like “Taboo” appears back-to-back with the commercial for McDonald’s Happy Meals, you tawkin’ to the wrongwrong audience.

A “taboo” show about “freaks” really needs to speak to the taboo freak in, well, people like me (who are willing to shell out $50 to see whatever it is you’re doing just because it’s there; not personally all that freaky, but I’m open to discussing it). That is where Taboo just didn’t work for me. I’m sitting there, 2 days before my period with my middle-aged hormones raging, and I watched Boy George (the character, not George O’Dowd, the actor) flip out, tearing his living room apart searching for heroin, finding it, frantically cutting it, snorting it, all while the love of his life was walking out forever. Earlier in the evening, I had almost burst into tears because I had misplaced my lipstick. Now: Nuthin’. I suppose there were lots of people in the audience whose own personal life experience filled in the emotional blanks in that scene. But, again, they had already seen the show. Twice.

David Byrne (formerly of the Talking Heads) was asked at the turn of some decade (I forget whether it was becoming the 80s or becoming the 90s) what he thought was the future of music. He responded by saying something like that, rather than any one genre becoming dominant, things would become more diverse and more specialized, and that lots of people would be doing things that had a smaller, narrower appeal. Oh, would that more people could see that at being a good thing. Taboo’s biggest problem is that it does not have a Broadway sort of story to tell. Taboo should have let itself be taboo. Trade the commercial aspirations in for the creative ones. See ya midnight on Fridays real soon.