The Tonys are over–now can we go back to talking about theater?

Don’t get me wrong: I watched the show last night and fairly enjoyed it. Even when they are bad–especially when they are bad–there is something crassly fun about awards shindigs. I especially enjoyed Alice Ripley’s screechy, car-crash acceptance speech, for instance, and Geoffrey Rush matched Mark Rylance (his predecessor as Best Leading Actor in a Play) when it came to elegance and humor.

But let’s not think for a minute that the Tonys are about New York theater. They are about Broadway, which is only the most visible part of New York theater. I was delighted to see Marin Ireland nominated for Best Leading Actress in a Play, for instance, but she should have been nominated–and she should have won–for “Blasted,” not for “reasons to be pretty.”

And of course there’s the issue of “Ruined,” which many think is the play of the season and which has just extended for the umpteenth time at MTC’s Off house–while the mediocre “Accent on Youth” hogs that company’s Broadway venue. While I greatly enjoyed the production of “God of Carnage,” the text itself isn’t all that good; had “Ruined” been on Broadway, I think it would have won for Best Play. An innocent question, then, out of the many this situation raises: Why can’t there be a section devoted to Off-Broadway on the Tonys? It’d be more fun than the horrific touring companies we saw last night. Ah, Elisabeth, you are naive: The Tonys are about TV ratings and advertising theatah to the great masses outside of New York, people who don’t care about Soho Rep and St. Ann’s Warehouse and all those weirdoes. Sorry, I forgot for a second.

And come to think of it, the Tonys aren’t even about all of Broadway, as the increasing trend of focusing on shows that are still running at the time of the ceremony keeps out those that had the misfortune of opening in the fall. Frank Langella alluded to this problem in a self-serving little speech, but at least the point was made. I enjoyed “The Norman Conquest,” for instance, but the Best Revival of a Play this season should have been Simon McBurney’s “All My Sons.”

To end on a wistful note, I was stunned by books critic Dwight Garner’s admission in the “New York Times” that he hasn’t seen any of the four best-play nominees. What does it say about the place of theater on this city’s cultural landscape and in the public discourse?