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| re: Kurtz was also considered for the part... | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 11:49 pm EDT 06/26/18 | |
| In reply to: Kurtz was also considered for the part... - garyd 11:41 pm EDT 06/26/18 | |
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| And Kurtz played the role for a time at the Newhouse when Channing had to leave for a while for a prior commitment before returning for the move to the Beaumont. Later she played it for L.A. Theatre Works, and the recording was issued. Kelly Bishop did it for a bit between Channing and Kurtz. Later, of course, she took over at the Beaumont and played it beautifully for several months before Channing returned for the final weeks. |
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| re: Kurtz was also considered for the part... | |
| Posted by: jwilson 12:09 am EDT 06/27/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Kurtz was also considered for the part... - AlanScott 11:49 pm EDT 06/26/18 | |
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| I saw Kurtz in Six Degrees. I was so excited about the play after seeing Channing (and loving the duo in House of Blue Leaves) that I immediately booked when Kurtz was announced. Unfortunately, she was not at all ideal for the part. She hadn't shaken the Bananas mannerisms, which were all wrong for Ouisa. I'm sorry I didn't see Kelly Bishop in the role as I imagine she would have been quite wonderful. | |
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| My experience of Channing and Bishop | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 12:37 am EDT 06/27/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Kurtz was also considered for the part... - jwilson 12:09 am EDT 06/27/18 | |
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| I've posted about this several times here over the years, but not recently. Bishop was not nearly as funny as Channing — although that may have had partly to do with not playing it to audiences as large as Channing's (more on that below) — but I preferred her in some ways because she made more sense of the character's journey. Both times I saw it with Channing — first during early previews at the Newhouse, and then during her final week at the Beaumont, when she had returned to close the production — it made no sense when she turned to Flan and said, "We're a terrible match." If you didn't mind that, she was dazzling. I have it on good authority that at the performance on the day of the Tonys, she made that moment work, but it may have been a one-time event. Both times I saw Bishop as Ouisa — first at the Newhouse, between Channing and Kurtz, and then near the end of her run at the Beaumont, just before Channing's return — her entire performance seemed built to that moment. It was inevitable. When I saw it early in previews at the Newhouse at a weekend matinee (I think it was the first week), it didn't get many laughs. I loved it, and the friend I was with loved it, but I'm not sure most of the LCT members did. Similarly, when I saw it later at the Newhouse with Bishop and an understudy Paul, it didn't get many laughs and I'm not sure the audience loved it, although by this time it had opened to great reviews. When i saw it with Bishop at the Beaumont, the house was perhaps 60 percent full, and it didn't get great laughs (although more than it had either time at the Newhouse), although I think the audience liked it a lot. Seeing it one last time during the final week at the Beaumont, with a packed house and everyone's timing very "on," it got huge laughs. I doubt that Bishop, who can be very funny, was ever as funny as Channing was with a packed house, probably for the reasons articulated so well by 15minutecall, but in some ways she was more convincing. |
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| re: My experience of Channing and Bishop | |
| Last Edit: 15minutecall 12:56 am EDT 06/27/18 | |
| Posted by: 15minutecall 12:46 am EDT 06/27/18 | |
| In reply to: My experience of Channing and Bishop - AlanScott 12:37 am EDT 06/27/18 | |
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| I agree with all you write here (and thank you for the kind shout out). I saw Bishop, as an understudy, in a pretty full house (sold out before the announcement of Channing's sickness). The laughs were not as plentiful or galvanic. But the payoff was sufficient compensation for me. Bishop used her hauteur as a mask for loneliness. Paul was a son to her, and the emotional connection which was created during his discussion of his thesis showed her what she was missing with Flan. Channing played her response to the speech as a joke, though it was wedded to an intellectual respect. Her social grasping was kept in the forefront and that's where she connected with Paul, whether she consciously recognized it or not. They were kindred spirits. That's why her Ouisa was a bad match for insider Flan. This made for a far different kind of connection, with much less emotion. Channing would take the production's only pause before "We're a terrible match" but that didn't create the epiphany that was intimated. | |
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| re: My experience of Channing and Bishop | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 01:06 am EDT 06/27/18 | |
| In reply to: re: My experience of Channing and Bishop - 15minutecall 12:46 am EDT 06/27/18 | |
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| You make me wish I could go back and see them both again. And I have to copy and paste and save your post lower down in the thread. |
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| Channing, Bishop and Marlo Thomas | |
| Posted by: bobby2 12:55 am EDT 06/27/18 | |
| In reply to: re: My experience of Channing and Bishop - 15minutecall 12:46 am EDT 06/27/18 | |
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| I saw all three. Channing was just excellent as was said above. A genuine comedian and a serious actress combined. Rare. I had seen her in The House of Blue Leaves too and that is one of the funniest performances I've ever seen. (granted I was a teenager but and liked sitcoms but she still seemed brilliant to me. Each announcement she had about her various jobs....I didn't work for the phone company for nothing etc!!! were just hysterical exit lines) Kurtz and Mahoney got Tonys but to me Stockard was the engine of the show and why the play never seems to work anywhere else. Baranski seems dull to me in the video. Bishop was adequate. She has a coldness about her that didn't quite work in the final scenes. Marlo Thomas was fine. I remember her being adequate and not a disappointment even after the bravura of Channing. |
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| re: Channing, Bishop and Marlo Thomas | |
| Last Edit: AlanScott 01:10 am EDT 06/27/18 | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 01:05 am EDT 06/27/18 | |
| In reply to: Channing, Bishop and Marlo Thomas - bobby2 12:55 am EDT 06/27/18 | |
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| Obviously, we disagree about Bishop as Ouisa, but I so agree about Channing's Bunny Flingus. I can't imagine anyone ever having been better or funnier in the role, and I think it may be my favorite of her performances. I so wish she'd still been in it when it was shot for television at the Plymouth. Christine Baranski can be brilliant, but I think she was so wrong in every way as Bunny, although I know that some people preferred her. There's a great danger in productions of the play: If Bunny is not likable and tremendously funny and a life force, it will all become too oppressive. Channing was an incredible life force when she played the role. She got it. Her performance was all positive energy, and the play so needs that. |
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| re: Channing, Bishop and Marlo Thomas | |
| Posted by: bobby2 01:24 am EDT 06/27/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Channing, Bishop and Marlo Thomas - AlanScott 01:05 am EDT 06/27/18 | |
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| Yes! Well said. And I just remembered how her scenes with Corrine where she is asking her questions and Corrine's hearing aid doesn't work so she is not answering the questions right.........well Stockard's reactions and glances to the audience indicating she thought Corrine was crazy just brought the house down. | |
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| I so wish Karen Ziemba had had the chance to do it in NYC. | |
| Last Edit: GabbyGerard 01:10 am EDT 06/27/18 | |
| Posted by: GabbyGerard 01:02 am EDT 06/27/18 | |
| In reply to: Channing, Bishop and Marlo Thomas - bobby2 12:55 am EDT 06/27/18 | |
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| Of course, if Allison Janney couldn't sell the show, Ziemba definitely couldn't have either... I had a friend in Ziemba's production at The Old Globe--which, like Janney's on Broadway, was directed by Trip Cullman. I went in skeptical because I thought her middle America warmth was all wrong for Ouisa. And, in some ways, it was. But it paid off in unexpected ways. Her sense of longing was palpable. She was desperate for human connection, a quality that I think is the subtext of Channing's performance in the film. But Ziemba wore her heart on her sleeve. Ouisa's storyline was no longer about a woman who is defrosted by her experience with Paul (which is what I get from Channing in the film), but a woman who learns to accept own humanity and vulnerability. And her realization that she and Flann (an absolutely perfect Thomas Jay Ryan--who ALSO should have done the show on Broadway) were a terrible match was heartbreaking. You saw a woman's entire understanding of her life shattered. |
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