| re: Bway replacements who outshine the originals | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 02:13 pm EST 12/20/18 | |
| In reply to: Bway replacements who outshine the originals - Zelgo 11:41 am EST 12/20/18 | |
|
|
|
| In 2010, Charles Isherwood did a column on this and asked for reader responses. I'm linking the page. If you scroll down, you can click where it says "74 comments" and they will appear (with, as far as I can tell, the most recent at the top) on the right side of the page. And then you have to click "Read More" a few times. There are at least two replies from me among the comments. and I think one or two other ATCers may have replied as well. I'm copying and pasting my first post from there directly below. On a number of experiences I've felt that replacements were equal or superior to the original actors. When I first saw SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE, I didn't think I could ever see better performances as George and Dot/Marie than those of Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters. Still, when Patinkin left, I soon went to see his replacement (formerly his understudy), Robert Westenberg. Westenberg's performance struck me as richer and warmer than Patinkin's, while still conveying the character's need to keep people at a distance. I was more surprised still by my reaction when Harry Groener, whom I thought of as a song-and-dance man, took over as George, and the little-known Maryann Plunkett became Dot/Marie. Much as I'd liked the show before, their performances transformed it into a much deeper and more emotionally varied journey. The one time I got to see the two of them play those roles together remains for me one of the greatest evenings I've ever had in the theatre. And in Sondheim and Lapine’s next show, INTO THE WOODS, I felt that Betsy Joslyn was sharper and more moving as the Witch than Bernadette Peters had been in the role. More recently, in THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA, Aaron Lazar’s Fabrizio was not only sung beautifully, but he seemed to inhabit the character with remarkable spontaneity and life. Katie Clarke’s Clara wasn’t as well sung as Kelli O’Hara’s, but she seemed more in tune with the character, more childlike, and more lost and confused when appropriate. And though I wouldn’t say that understudy and alternate Patti Cohenour was better than Victoria Clark as Margaret, she gave a gentler and quieter performance that was very beautiful. Moving to plays, I thought Frances Sternhagen and Zoe Caldwell gave tremendous performances in what may be Terrence McNally’s best play, A PERFECT GANESH. But when I saw their replacements, Helen Stenborg and Charlotte Moore, I was fascinated to see a very different and in some ways more complex show. With Sternhagen and Caldwell, the play was about finding forgiveness and some sort of redemption, but with Stenborg and Moore, it seemed to be a much bleaker play about how forgiveness and redemption are extremely difficult if not impossible to find. Were Stenborg and Moore necessarily better? Maybe not, but I found the play even more interesting with their very brave performances. And then there was Sally Field in Albee’s THE GOAT, OR WHO IS SYLVIA? Mercedes Ruehl had given a masterful performance. But where Ruehl had played a powerful, sophisticated woman to whom larger-than-life emotions seemed natural, Field’s performance had a perhaps more effective arc. Field seemed like a normal woman shocked and surprised to find that she could feel such powerful and violent emotions. It added an extra layer to the play. |
|
| Link | The Replacements' Greatest Hits |
| reply | |
|
|
|
| Previous: | re: Bway replacements who outshine the originals - Glitter 03:00 pm EST 12/20/18 |
| Next: | re: Bway replacements who outshine the originals - showtunetrivia 10:03 pm EST 12/20/18 |
| Thread: |
|
Time to render: 0.023876 seconds.