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| re: Speaking of Auntie Mame ... | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 08:08 pm EDT 05/13/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Speaking of Auntie Mame ... - flaguy 10:51 am EDT 05/13/18 | |
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| Just a small note that the play is in two acts. Perhaps Bay Street did it in three (although I can't imagine where you would place another intermission). In the benefit staged reading Busch did some years back (before Bay Street, I think), I thought he didn't really know how to do it. He got the surface, but wonderful as he is in the right roles, the role requires things that he couldn't provide, at least at the time under those circumstances. |
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| re: Speaking of Auntie Mame ... | |
| Posted by: GatorMan 11:39 pm EDT 05/13/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Speaking of Auntie Mame ... - AlanScott 08:08 pm EDT 05/13/18 | |
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| I saw the Bay Street production (2004), which was in two acts, and very much enjoyed Charles Busch's performance, but agree it was rather superficial. I remember being astounded by all the costume changes -- one, it seemed, for each of the 25 scenes. As for the casting, there was a great deal of doubling -- Penny Fuller played both Vera Charles and Mother Burnside, and Gordana Rashovich did Agnes Gooch and 3 other roles. Max Van Essen had 5 roles including the older Patrick. What I remember best about the production was an electrical malfunction that doused the lights near the end of Act One and it was 45 minutes before they could pick up where they left off. If the production got great reviews it probably would have ended up off-Broadway, where it might have been whipped into better shape, but the reviews were mixed, and -- alas -- it never made it. I still think Busch well suited to Mame and if he were to return in the role I wouldn't miss it. But what are the chances of that? As others have pointed out -- Mame Dennis may be an artifact of an era that has passed. | |
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| re: Auntie Mame in TWO acts ... | |
| Posted by: flaguy 07:34 am EDT 05/14/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Speaking of Auntie Mame ... - GatorMan 11:39 pm EDT 05/13/18 | |
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| How odd I should remember it in three long acts. I guess it only FELT like that to me, at the time. ;) |
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| And even 2004 is a long, long time ago... | |
| Last Edit: Delvino 06:46 am EDT 05/14/18 | |
| Posted by: Delvino 06:44 am EDT 05/14/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Speaking of Auntie Mame ... - GatorMan 11:39 pm EDT 05/13/18 | |
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| The world was very different in 2004. The cultural embrace of someone like Mame was still fairly nostalgic. But so many pieces of Mame's story, including the inherent classism and racism lite are just harder to find charming. She's a rich woman who throws parties for bohemians and iconoclasts, loses her money, can't hold a job and must marry to sustain her elite lifestyle. She loathes the Upsons, but Patrick still basically ends up another privileged white man. It's not as if Patrick ever applies any of Mame's supposedly life-altering philosophy other than showing the Upsons the door, finally. It's a long journey to get to its foregone conclusion. Without the period specific feel of the film, and Russell, the humor floats around various points of discomfort, like Mame's need for full-time servants just to survive, one a desexualized Asian male caricature. (She launches Agnes, though in a date rape-y way by today's standards, but her helpers are expected to stay exactly where they are -- waiting on her -- once she's flush again.) Nowhere in the play does Mame have any reckoning about the world around her and her need to change with it other than to finally put down antisemitism, the one moral stand she takes. It's an important one, but conveniently, allows Mame to function in a world without any visible Jewish presence. I love the Russell movie, and ignore all of the above when I watch it. But it's frozen in time, we accept the film as a product of its era (the 50s), and have nostalgia both for the movie and our own youth when we first got to know Mame. In 2018, she feels like a relic, if an iconic one. Re-introducing her story now feels pointless, especially with the perfect iteration -- at least of her character -- preserved forever. |
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| re: And even 2004 is a long, long time ago... | |
| Posted by: JereNYC (JereNYC@aol.com) 02:28 pm EDT 05/15/18 | |
| In reply to: And even 2004 is a long, long time ago... - Delvino 06:44 am EDT 05/14/18 | |
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| I wonder if any current playwright would be interested in doing a contemporary response to AUNTIE MAME. It might be interesting to see a new piece that seriously considered who the character would be today and how we look at her shenanigans through modern eyes. Since the original play was written in the 1950's, about a near past 20 year span of time, we might see a Mame character moving through a New York of, for example, 1995-2015. One interesting facet of that particular span of time would be that it would allow Mame to be a fun loving party girl at the height of the Clinton 90's, take her into darker personal times during the Bush years, including a big recession which might sap her finances, and bring her back to her glory at the height of Obama. |
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