Threaded Order Chronological Order
| The day and month are correct, the year is wrong - October 31, 1995 on Broadway at the Lunt-Fontanne. | |
| Posted by: Marlo*Manners 11:13 pm EDT 06/26/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Parallel observation: "Larger than Life" performers like Channing, Merman even LuPone. Do we still cultivate them? - AlanScott 10:01 pm EDT 06/26/18 | |
|
|
|
| BTW: Channing got a very good review in the NY Times and was praised in other publications. The production looked like a scaled down touring production that was playing in a big Broadway barn. Lee Roy Reams stuck very closely to the Gower Champion template. Channing's wig was a strange raspberry pink color. The rest of the cast was aged up a bit - Florence Lacey was a rather matronly but beautifully sung Irene Malloy and Jay Garner was Horace Vandergelder. The rest of the cast I forgot and were likely forgettable. Channing was managing her voice from phrase to phrase and "Before the Parade Passes By" was a triumph of will over reduced means. She put it over though. Physically, I remember incredible physical business that required lots of control over the body. But I didn't get any sense she was frail or unsteady on her feet. The eating scene was a tour de force as she stuffed her face full of potato puffs (actually little pieces of dyed tissue paper that she balled up in her cheeks and didn't swallow) while rattling off Dolly's dialogue with Horace. Anyway, Miss Channing was probably not "ageless" but definitely still giving a star performance. Marlo Manners (Lady Barrington) |
|
| reply to this message |
| re: The day and month are correct, the year is wrong - October 31, 1995 on Broadway at the Lunt-Fontanne. | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 12:58 am EDT 06/27/18 | |
| In reply to: The day and month are correct, the year is wrong - October 31, 1995 on Broadway at the Lunt-Fontanne. - Marlo*Manners 11:13 pm EDT 06/26/18 | |
|
|
|
| I'm sure the production played in much bigger barns on the road before (and after) Broadway. Both times I saw her during that last run, she had tremendous energy. As I noted in another post, she was ill at one point during the run, but it's hard to imagine anyone being more energized than she was the two times I saw her. Some of the roles were cast with people older than in the original, but Garner was only four or five years older than Burns. Lacey was probably back because she was available and had done the role in the 1978 revival. Herman loved her in the role, and I think Channing was probably happy to have someone there who had been in it with her before and with whom she probably got along very well. It may be that the Cornelius, Michael DeVries, who was in his mid-40s, was hired more to match with Lacey than directly because of Channing. |
|
| reply to this message |
Time to render: 0.007104 seconds.