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| re: I think Norm Lewis is my second favorite Sweeney | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 02:53 am EDT 08/17/17 | |
| In reply to: re: I think Norm Lewis is my second favorite Sweeney - bobby2 12:12 am EDT 08/17/17 | |
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| Cariou's voice was fine at the end of the year. In fact, in some portions of the score, he was singing better than on opening night. In "Epiphany," he no longer had the vocal power he'd had originally but he was fine. It may be that the sound guy was still following Prince's instruction after the dress rehearsal to keep Cariou's body mike off during "Epiphany" because he didn't need it (and the sound guy responded, "It was off"). At a certain point in the run, the sound guy should have disregarded that instruction (if, indeed, he was still following it), but it wasn't like Cariou wasn't coming through. It just wasn't as vocally powerful. Cariou had some problems during previews because they were using potting soil for the grave, and it got on his vocal cords. It was doing real damage to his cords, but he refused to miss performances. They changed what they were using for the dirt in the grave. He has said that because of the problems from the potting soil, he had acute laryngitis at the time the the cast recording was made. But he still generally sounded fine. It seems that he did run into problems at certain points during the run, but so did George Hearn when he did it (or so Lansbury said). Cariou went on to do other things rather than the Sweeney tour. He filmed The Four Seasons, and he was back at Stratford, Ontario, in the spring of 1981, while the tour was still going on. Lansbury had not wanted to do the tour either, and they really had to work to persuade her. (There's a story about this that I've told here before.) At one point, it seemed like Estelle Parsons might do it instead. I am also very sorry indeed that Cariou did not do the tour as I feel he gave the greatest male performance I've ever seen in a musical, although I am very glad to have the two videos we have of his performances from Stratford — as Petruchio and Prospero — that he might not have done if he'd done the tour. I guess I'll add that I doubt he could have done the roles he did at Stratford in 1981 and 1982 if he had blown his voice. Those roles also included Coriolanus, Brutus and Sergius in Arms and the Man. Admittedly, singing is different, but if you're doing Petruchio and Coriolanus in rep, and then the following year you're doing Prospero, Brutus and Sergius in rep, you've got to have a voice. I remember Michael Feingold reviewing several productions in the 1982 season and writing something like, "When Len Cariou as Brutus thunders 'Hence!', people get hence in a hurry." He certainly did go on to have vocal problems, and they seem to have started during Dance a Little Closer. Perhaps damage had been done during the Sweeney run because of what had happened during previews, but it took a while before the damage became a major problem. |
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| Link to my interview with Len Cariou | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 10:58 am EDT 08/17/17 | |
| In reply to: re: I think Norm Lewis is my second favorite Sweeney - AlanScott 02:53 am EDT 08/17/17 | |
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| ....originally conducted in 2013 and published last year in EVERYTHING SONDHEIM | |
| Link | Brilliant Stuff: Interview with Len Cariou, the original Sweeney Todd |
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| re: Link to my interview with Len Cariou | |
| Posted by: bobby2 01:16 am EDT 08/18/17 | |
| In reply to: Link to my interview with Len Cariou - Michael_Portantiere 10:58 am EDT 08/17/17 | |
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| thanks! Very interesting. Question though: Why did they rush to record the album so early in previews when they were under such strain? Was this common? You'd think they'd wait until after the opening when everyone had settled down a bit. |
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| re: Link to my interview with Len Cariou | |
| Last Edit: AlanScott 04:31 am EDT 08/18/17 | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 04:20 am EDT 08/18/17 | |
| In reply to: re: Link to my interview with Len Cariou - bobby2 01:16 am EDT 08/18/17 | |
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| The recording was made a week and a half after the opening. I don't think Cariou was trying to say that it was made during previews. I think he was saying that they did 10 performances during the final week of previews, which included the opening, then they did the recording. But he's misremembering. What was a bit a crazy was that they recorded it over two days. That seems smart, but they did it on Monday (the cast's day off) and then they did the second session on Tuesday. Then the cast went to the theater to play it that night. He's also misremembering when he says that they gave 10 performances during the final week. They gave the standard eight. Maybe he's a bit mixed up because they had no days off the week they made the recording. It had long been common to make the cast recording the first Sunday after opening night, at least back in the days when new shows almost always played a Monday through Saturday schedule. When shows opened on Saturday night, as did sometimes happen even with big shows (for example, Camelot), it would be a week later. Occasionally there were shows that for some reason did not record for another week or two, or very occasionally the recording was made earlier (Anya being an example). Yes, it was a bit foolish that so many cast recordings were made on the first day off, especially back in the days when Equity allowed rehearsals seven days a week even during tryouts and previews, but it was felt important to get the recording out there as soon as possible. But often the performers were very tired, and sometimes it's audible on those recordings. |
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| re: Link to my interview with Len Cariou | |
| Posted by: bobby2 09:40 pm EDT 08/18/17 | |
| In reply to: re: Link to my interview with Len Cariou - AlanScott 04:20 am EDT 08/18/17 | |
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| Alan, did you see many changes in the supporting casts? How did Victor Garber and Sarah Rice compare to Cris and Betsy? You saw Loudon and Hearn too, right? |
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| re: Link to my interview with Len Cariou | |
| Last Edit: AlanScott 02:34 am EDT 08/19/17 | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 02:28 am EDT 08/19/17 | |
| In reply to: re: Link to my interview with Len Cariou - bobby2 09:40 pm EDT 08/18/17 | |
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| The onlly changes in principal roles during the run were the four you mention. And I never saw an understudy. 11 times, and never an understudy. I liked Sarah Rice, but I probably preferred Joslyn's more comic and quirkier take on the role. Sarah Rice sang it beautifully, and she was very good. Joslyn perhaps sang it a bit more excitingly if less precisely. Rice actually had a real trill. I mean, even in opera, not many people have a real trill. Of course, most people know Joslyn from the video, and she has a bad rep because of that. I think her performance changed a bit over the long time she played it. And it was a mistake to put "Green Finch" in the higher key for her. But part of the problem with her performance in the video may be that the sequence was shot early in the morning the night after a performance, or at least that's what the production's musical director, Jim Coleman, wrote years ago on Broadwayworld. Or at least I remember him writing that. I just did a search for that post, but I think it was so long ago that it was before the big crash over there, and it didn't come up. Someone else wrote there more recently that Angelina Reaux said that Joslyn had the flu when it was shot. Which is a bit odd since Reaux was long gone from the production by the time the video was shot (thanks to getting seriously hurt when the chute malfunctioned one night in D.C. and mangled her legs), but perhaps Reaux and Joslyn talked later. I thought Garber was fine, but when Groenendaal took over, it was much better. Not just his singing. I thought he was better in the role in every way. I know that people also don't like him in the video. I get why people don't like Joslyn. I don't get why people don't like him. I think he's one of the better people in the video. Yeah, I saw Loudon and Hearn twice. Loudon was so all over the place. Some of her choices were fascinating and very effective. Some were fascinating but arguably misguided. Interestingly, her performance was generally smaller than Lansbury's, but then she'd suddenly mug right out to the audience, which was so odd given that much of her performance was if anything on the small and almost naturalistic side. But her great moments were really great, and she sure was different than Lansbury. Hearn was also very different from Cariou. Oddly, years later, he said that when he first played the role, he imitated Cariou. Maybe he just meant that he imitated Cariou by playing it left-handed because he thought they wanted that. Cariou is left-handed. And then one day (according to Hearn), Sondheim said to him, "I wanted a right-handed Sweeney, and now I've had two left-handed Sweeneys." And Hearn told him that he was right-handed, but he trained himself to do it all as if he was right-handed. Maybe he thought he was imitating Cariou's acting choices, too, but everyone I know agrees: he was very different. Anyway, when I first saw Hearn, I thought he was promising in the role. Less detailed than Cariou, he seemed to push for anger in some places, although not as much as he did later. Well, I should amend that just a little. When I first saw him, he played anger very inappropriately when the Judge came in to the shop, actually yelling at him a couple of times. He played it as if he was so angry that he couldn't control it and so he'd yell at the Judge, and then he'd realize it, and lower his voice. At some point between the first time I saw him and the second, he toned that down, and then he toned it down more on the tour. But he sure went far with the anger in other places, and I just feel he's pushing for it. Cariou woulld erupt. Hearn seems very calculated, working hard to reach that anger. He lacked some of the comedy that Cariou found but Cariou took a while to find some of that. In some places, Hearn just didn't find anything very interesting and in other places he pushed, but he had some good moments. Unfortunately, at least to judge from the national tour video, his performance got worse rather than better. Still, over the years, having seen so many Sweeneys, it seems to me that he was one of the better ones (just because there weren't many later ones I liked much). But there are moments that I find silly in his performance. Maybe it's because his performance was too big for the camera, although I can't help but feel that if it was coming from someplace really connected, it could be big without seeming silly. And I never understood why he seems so sour with Lansbury in "A Little Priest." With LuPone later, he adjusted that. Really, I don't get why people love that tour video. To me, it's like Lansbury is in one theater and he's in another. Each is giving a performance that seems independent of what the other one is doing. EDIT: I'm adding something that I just found that I wrote back in January. For me, Lansbury was perhaps the most sociopathic and delusional of Lovetts. In a way, it was especially odd that she was followed by Loudon, who was the sanest of Lovetts (except when it came to her belief that Sweeney might return her love), perhaps because she didn't want to copy Lansbury. With Loudon, we got Lovett gradually breaking down through the pressure of the events of act two. It made her, for better or worse (or a bit of both), very different from anyone else I've seen. More than other Lovetts, she seemed to be really falling apart as the second act went on. Lansbury had little sanity to lose, which made it much easier to believe that she could chop up those bodies and cook them. Loudon seemed to be playing that everything, including that, was taking a terrible toll on her. |
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| re: Link to my interview with Len Cariou | |
| Posted by: bobby2 04:10 am EDT 08/19/17 | |
| In reply to: re: Link to my interview with Len Cariou - AlanScott 02:28 am EDT 08/19/17 | |
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| Thank you so much for your detailed response! I've printed it out to save! One thing I'd love to hear you expand on is when you say Loudon was "Some of her choices were fascinating and very effective. Some were fascinating but arguably misguided" I'm so fascinated Loudon in the role. Mostly because we almost went to see it when I was a small kid and then my parents thought it would be inappropriate and at the last minute we went across the street to Sugar Babies instead which I didn't really like. Then as I grew up and I became to realize that Sweeney was such a classic....well I always felt damn. I could have seen it. (granted it probably would have gone over my head at the time and maybe even freaked me out so I guess my parents were right. But still......This and Carrie are my two big theater going regrets. |
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| re: Link to my interview with Len Cariou | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 10:17 am EDT 08/19/17 | |
| In reply to: re: Link to my interview with Len Cariou - bobby2 04:10 am EDT 08/19/17 | |
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| This is far, far less detailed than Alan's response, but I remember there were two reasons why I really didn't care for Loudon in the role: (1) her lower-class-Brit accent sounded way off, and I don't think anyone can work in that role if she can't do the accent properly; (2) as I recall, Loudon belted ALL of the high notes -- I don't remember her going into a soprano extension at all, if she even had one -- and I didn't like the way that sounded. | |
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| Continued praise of Len Cariou | |
| Posted by: peter3053 04:04 am EDT 08/17/17 | |
| In reply to: re: I think Norm Lewis is my second favorite Sweeney - AlanScott 02:53 am EDT 08/17/17 | |
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| Ah, his Petruchio and Prospero, yes, and preserved on videotape! The most unfetteredly funny Petruchio one could see, and his Prospero is the only one I've seen who actually conveys such vengeful power and determination that his final rediscovery of the grace of mercy rings utterly relieving. (So often, too, Prosperos are too old to gather the energy needed.) Also, Cariou picked up on Prospero's gentle appreciation of the good things of the world, Miranda's "very virtue of compassion" and so on. But his courting scene with Kate in Taming is also unparalleled in my theatergoing experience. By "unfetteredly funny", I mean no director imposed some framing device or updating trick to "apologise" for arguably unsavoury aspects of Taming. Cariou's Petruchio took on Kate head-on, and believed every minute he had to tame a woman - and audience's then were intelligent enough not to be offended by what is clearly a comical twist on what Shakespeare and everyone else knows - that normally it is a woman who ends up taming a man. The play is a reversal for comic purposes. I have to add that, arguably, the best King Lear around is still the James Earl Jones one, for sympathetic intelligence; Kevin Kline was both a warmly intellectual and a heart-felt Hamlet, arguably none better; and Cariou conquered the two Ps. But then, after all, America and Canada are deeply Elizabethan era countries, so that may explain why some of the best Shakespeare happens West of the Atlantic. Cariou's Sweeney Todd was recorded for TOFT and the pleasure awaits the rediscover. |
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| re: Continued praise of Len Cariou | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 04:34 am EDT 08/17/17 | |
| In reply to: Continued praise of Len Cariou - peter3053 04:04 am EDT 08/17/17 | |
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| What I especially love about that Taming of the Shrew is that it's really a love story. As you say, most of the time in Shakespeare comedy, the woman teaches the man how to be a better person. This is really the one time that it's in reverse. I've never seen a clearer or more satisfying production of the play. Sharry Flett is a wonderful Kate, and the wooing scene is, as you say, incredibly funny. And they are great together in the sun and moon and budding virgin scene. The production predates Jonathan Miller's Subsequent Performances analysis of the play, but it reflects the same view of the play. And it's better than the Miller TV production. And, yes, it's incredibly moving when Cariou's vengeful and neurotic Prospero responds to Ariel's "Mine would, sir, were I human" with "And mine shall." And that's due in part to Ian Deakin's Ariel, and the relationship that Ariel and Prospero have in that production. Jones was my first Lear, I saw him twice, and I still like him, but I do wish he'd done it again later. And I wish I'd gotten to see Cariou one of the two times he played it. And i wish I could go back in time to see Louis Calhern, Morris Carnovsky (but not his last one), Lee J. Cobb, Paul Scofield, one of Gielgud's several (although perhaps not the weird one with the Noguchi-derived designs) and . . . a bunch of others, including Donald Wolfit's. Kline is far from my favorite Hamlet, but I only saw him in the television production. There have been a lot of very good Hamlets. |
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