Another chapter of theatrical history has, blissfully, ended. After 6,680 performances, “Les Miserables” has finally gone not-so-gently into the good night whence it should have retreated approximately 6,600 performances ago.

The show’s long life is mostly indicative of the lack of any decent competition. Although some of the gems from the past have been revived in the past few years, they’re known quantities. Wonderful shows, but nothing new under the marquee. Then again, there’s no accounting for taste; from 1922 to 1927 “Abie’s Irish Rose” ran a then-unprecedented 2,327 performances, and it was the worst piece of hokum to come down the pike since the overdone “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” touring productions forty years earlier. A few years before “Abie’s Irish Rose”, the equally-dippy “Amber Empress” had a gorgeous musical score – a nugget of usefulness that “Abie” lacked entirely – but only survived a miserable fifteen performances and one Victor record, never to be revived or heard from again.

Boiled down to its basic elements, “Les Miserables” was a boring musical based on a boring novel set in a foolish bored-student revolution that no one remembers anymore and wasn’t even a particularly noble cause. It paired pathos and melodrama in a way that hadn’t been seen since the halcyon days of such theatrical bilge as “East Lynne”, but its ostensible social message carried weight in the modern age, when witty plots and haunting refrains are considered useless if they don’t bolster audience self-righteousness.

Sadly, “Les Miz”, as it is hight amongst its followers, is typical of modern musical production in the wake of the Bad Ship Lloyd-Weber. Few tunes are catchy because Broadway is no longer mined for popular songs and dance numbers, since popular songs no longer have melody and modern social dancing requires only pelvic thrusts. Sets have taken surrealism to a new level (wait; does surrealism have levels, or does it have fur-covered ratchets?), mixing minimalism with laser shows and giant turntables that dispense with traditional scene changes. Worse, perhaps, is the style of vocal performance that emphasizes a brassy throat voice. The richer, more melodious chest voice is now unnecessary because, even in the front row, the voices you hear come through loudspeakers thanks to remote mikes attached to everyone’s collar.

There have always been “social message” plays; the curiosity is that this one became such a hit despite its uninspired music and complete lack of staging (with turntables, staging becomes a nonentity). Is it simply a universal lack of taste?

I’d like to mount a production of “Das Land des Lachelns” in this country. (Oh, fine, we can translate it and call it “The Land of Smiles”.) As operettas go, it’s pretty depressing; no one ends up happy in the end because the two main couples can’t deal with racial and cultural differences (Austrian vs. Chinese). The show does, however, have one of the most beautiful scores ever written; it gives you plenty of chances for romantic scenes and gorgeous costumes, and there’s plenty of comic relief to tone down the rather dark overall messages. Notably, no one ever even tried to produce the 1929 show in New York, though it swept away its competition in Vienna, Berlin, Paris and London. It would be interesting to see how American audiences react to a good show with a message.

It would probably close after a dozen performances.