Musicals As Hell

This snippet from a review of "Cabaret" caught my eye:

We all see the same grinning, thumbs-in-suspenders hell onstage. We all witness the same grueling, psychotic meltdowns that afflict speakers mid-sentence, making them inhale deeply, turn to no one in particular and wail with embarrassing candor about their loneliness, all because an invisible piano told them to do it.

Sounds like it is time to reprint what Wallace Shawn once said in an interview with the New York Times Magazine (January 11, 2004):

Q. Do you follow Broadway theater?

A. No. I don't see that many plays, and for me, musicals are rarely pleasing. I feel the actors are being put through a kind of nightmarish labor. They're like animals being forced to pull heavy carts of vegetables at incredible speeds.

Q. Can't you make an exception for "Oklahoma" or "South Pacific"?

A. I saw "South Pacific" as a child and thought it was terrifying.