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| re: Speaking of Auntie Mame ... | |
| Posted by: StageDoorJohnny 03:45 pm EDT 05/13/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Speaking of Auntie Mame ... - SidL 02:53 pm EDT 05/13/18 | |
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| or go to color-blind casting -- Audra, Viola Davis or Vera- Octavia Spencer, Whoopi |
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| Mame in Mothballs | |
| Posted by: Jax 06:02 pm EDT 05/13/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Speaking of Auntie Mame ... - StageDoorJohnny 03:45 pm EDT 05/13/18 | |
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| It's probably heresy to suggest it on this board, but it might be time to give AUNTIE MAME a rest. It's a busy, lavish show from another era, but it's questionable if today's audiences would respond to it in sufficient numbers to make it viable. The Roundabout did a revival of THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER about a decade ago with Nathan Lane...and it had just aged out. You've got the movie, with Rosalind Russell, and Technicolor, and the Orry-Kelly dresses and I think you should be happy with that. Beyond that, the casting would be impossible. Annette Benning has done ELECTRA and THE CHERRY ORCHARD on stage in L.A. Why would she leave her home and family to do a 60 year old chestnut? (albeit a funny one.) Holland Taylor, pardon me, is ancient, and Harriet Harris, pardon me again, has no glamour. The major film stars -- Benning, Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Cate Blanchette, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Meryl Streep -- who could sell tickets for this kind of show are not interested in playing this kind of paper doll heroine who changes her costume in every scene and whips around a cigarette holder. In this moment for women, they are looking for more varied, interesting roles. Their ideas of modern comedy are what we see in "Big Little Lies" or Pfeiffer's odd turn in "Mother." AUNTIE MAME is a great old movie. Long live AUNTIE MAME. |
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| A story of elitism, re-framed as an iconoclast's courageous stand to save a child; in truth, Mame is a survivor but not terribly heroic. | |
| Last Edit: Delvino 10:24 pm EDT 05/13/18 | |
| Posted by: Delvino 10:18 pm EDT 05/13/18 | |
| In reply to: Mame in Mothballs - Jax 06:02 pm EDT 05/13/18 | |
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| Amen to everything you said, so succinctly, and with spot-on accuracy. This material is special, priceless, and old school gay culture defining with Russell, but it couldn't survive a revival. The whole philosophy of Mame Dennis is just too inherently oppositional -- in many ways at war with itself -- in 2018. She's tolerant and inclusive, socially, but also privileged, snobbish, an upper East Side denizen who slums more than she fully participates in anything but her own cocktail party-driven elitism, and doesn't really respect work. She aims to marry for money, but luckily falls in love, but then frets mightily about the startling idea that her nephew likes, well, entitlement and privilege. Two things she must have herself to survive (no one wants to admit that; she's just funny, not selling roller skates well.). No, we don't expect her to be a paragon of progressivism. But she's a tad self-absorbed and conveniently Bohemia-embracing only when it's affordable rather than a true practicing iconoclast. Her attempt to rescue adult Patrick from a fate worse than death -- a Manhattan life of rich white male privilege -- results in his living a life of ... straight white male privilege. If Patrick at least ended up bisexual, and Pegeen a guy, or what the hell, Jewish, or a woman of color (how nice that she's Irish) well, something might feel less hypocritical about "Live Live Live!". But Patrick just ends up as rich but kinda nicer. I don' t know, she is so superior to Eisenhower-era conservatism, and of course, loathes the Jew bashing in the CT suburbs. But what is her socioeconomic reality? Stay a floating 2 percenter at any cost. It's not terrible, it's just not exactly heroic in 2018. |
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| re: Mame in Mothballs | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 08:02 pm EDT 05/13/18 | |
| In reply to: Mame in Mothballs - Jax 06:02 pm EDT 05/13/18 | |
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| I think a revival is unlikely, too. Really only a possibility for the Roundabout but perhaps prohibitively expensive for them (given that it's a play, not a musical). Having said that, I did just want to mention that Tilda Swinton has spoken of her desire to play the role onscreen in a version that would be closer to the novel. So I don't think the younger and/or more famous leading ladies would necessarily be completely uninterested in playing the role for a limited run, although Swinton probably doesn't have quite the star power of the other ladies you mention (and even she wanted a new adaptation, not the one we know). The last time here that I talked about one of my problems with both the play and the musical, I got heavily attacked (mostly by one person), so I'm not bringing the specifics of that up again. Still, I do love the movie. And I think the movie is so good—partly because it's a product of that time period when people knew how to do that sort of material—that any stage production would pale by comparison. (You seem to feel more or less the same way.) And we can watch the movie whenever we want. The Man Who Came to Dinner, a considerably better play than Auntie Mame, did well for the Roundabout, thanks in part to the star power. I thought that production was not really especially good overall, but it still did bring in people, even if it fell a bit short of being a sell-out for them. |
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| re: Mame in Mothballs | |
| Posted by: bmc 09:57 am EDT 05/14/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Mame in Mothballs - AlanScott 08:02 pm EDT 05/13/18 | |
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| Verry fuzzy memories, but when the real life character who was the basis for Mame, decided to start giving her money to the poor, didn't her family try to have her commited.? Or am I thinking of something else. ? It's 10 AM and I haven't had my cup tea yet. With Mame, as with the much stronger PYGMALIAN, it's possible you would have audience members humming the songs to themselves. | |
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