| Another Peters "Dolly" fan. | |
| Last Edit: Delvino 07:39 pm EDT 07/03/18 | |
| Posted by: Delvino 07:34 pm EDT 07/03/18 | |
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| Saw the holiday matinee today with a full, rapturous house. I saw Midler late last August, and certainly found nothing wanting. Yet the Peters center of this gorgeous production -- its current heartbeat -- just feels timeless in some way. Classic? If I might use that. All of the other performances seem to pop around her in interesting ways. Creel and Baldwin, superb with Midler, felt a perfect stylistic match for the Peters approach. I thought Creel in particular was if anything better than 11 months ago. As is the brilliant new Barnaby who has generated a lot of attention. Why is the Peters Dolly so satisfying on its own terms? Midler's emotional moments are certainly as full. For me, maybe, the old school blend of acting and singing just feels utterly seamless and devoid of a whiff of pop trappings. Others disagree, but the Herman songs sit more attractively on the Peters voice to my ear. Small moments, like her "Dancing" verses, land beautifully. Unabashedly, I still love her singing, and this afternoon she seemed in wonderful voice, though she was doing more back phrasing on "I Put My Hand In." People grouse about her vibrato wobble, but she still conjures enough of the Peters I first heard in "Mack and Mable" at the Kennedy Center. I think her Dolly vocals are lovely, and her "Before the Parade" has as much power as any Dolly's, ever*. The biggest surprise is the way she handles the comedy. She can be as broad as Midler or Channing, but always in her own way. The eating scene that Zaks has drilled to farcical perfection is just as relentlessly comic; and to my further surprise, Peters feels right at home playing the meta aspects of diva-on-the-runway. She has found her own way to approximate the Dolly/Actor fatigue, and it's in no way self-conscious. Here, it's Dolly who tires more than Peters-as-overworked-star. Maybe. Just my take. At 70, she's lived enough of this woman's emotional life, enough said, and she uses it spectacularly well. It's done so simply (if you didn't like her "Clowns," this has the same depth but with the tears withheld, powerfully.) I suspected I'd like her a lot, and I was besotted from the start. Garber is delightful, charming (with a Bernie Sanders accent that fades in and out and then leaves altogether). I expected their pairing to be warmer, even ... can I say it? ... a little hotter, and it is. But then, to me Peters and Garber are as sexy as they ever were off stage. Great rear orchestra on TDF (I saw Midler from up high). If anyone is still on the fence, 15 performances remain. I'd say it's an unmissable production, and Peters, for me, is unmissable, too. |
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