It has long been established that Eliza is a difficult sing, so even if it isn't an "alternate obligatory" part, it isn't
surprising that an Eliza might need one. Even so, it is unfair to ticket-buyers to create what is in effect a
bait-and-switch, however inadvertent.
Diana Rigg belongs to a tradition of honoring the audience by giving it the same show the critics saw, night
after night. If anyone has the right to comment on that--in what seems to be a private email that somebody
leaked without Rigg's permission--it is she.
And it may be that she has noticed that, ever since the notion of an alternate was introduced, several generations
ago, alternates have become a thing, even a source of prestige. The performer wants the public to be aware of how much
the work demands of him. Instead of routining a way to pace the performance to enable an
eight-times-a-week run, the star seeks this safety net.
Of course, one can argue that the alternate gives the star the ability to keep his performance at a level of 10,
rather than cut back to 8 (as Ethel Merman famously did, most of the time) after opening night.
But there are rather a number of alternates nowadays. If you go back far enough, there used to be none. Maybe
it should be a Tony category, as it seems so much a part of Broadway and may well become even more
common. |
