| A few more | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 04:52 pm EST 12/21/18 | |
| In reply to: A couple more - AlanScott 09:13 pm EST 12/20/18 | |
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| I'm surprised at myself for not mentioning Kelly Bishop's Ouisa in Six Degrees of Separation given how many times over the years I've said that I thought she made more sense of the role than Stockard Channing did. She wasn't as funny or dazzling, but her performance built to a point where it seemed inevitable when she turned to Flan and said, "We're a terrible match." It made no sense when Stockard Channing said that. Given how dazzling Channing was in many ways, I'm not sure I'd say that Bishop was better. But perhaps just as good. I guess I'll also mention Adam Grupper as the Baker in Into the Woods. He was the replacement Steward and so he was the replacement understudy for the Baker. He played the role for a week near the end of the Broadway run, and later he took over on tour. I saw his second act on Broadway one night, and later I saw him on tour. Much as I like Chip Zien in general, and even though he did many lovely things in the role, his second-act crisis never seemed quite strong enough. Adam Grupper managed that. And speaking of Into the Woods, although I'm not sure I'd say that Kay McClelland and Judy McLane were better than Joanna Gleason as the Baker's Wife, I think I liked them just as much. Similarly to the Stockard Channing-Kelly Bishop comparison, if neither of them was a funny as Gleason, they perhaps carried along a stronger throughline for the character, and they did well enough in the laughs department. And then there's Judy Kaye in On the Twentieth Century. I don't usually mention her in these discussions because of the unusual circumstances, but that doesn't change that she was a replacement, and for me she transformed the show. I know there are folks who preferred Kahn, but I certainly did not. I still feel that Kaye gave the best leading female musical-comedy performance I've ever seen, at least for the first six months or so of her run in the role. And to go to some supporting players in Sondheim shows, I should mention Betsy Joslyn and Cris Groenendaal in Sweeney Todd, and I should mention John Cunningham and Pamela Burrell in Sunday in the Park With George. And Betsy Joslyn was a fantastic Celeste #2. Which is not to say that their predecessors weren't very good, too. And although he never took over full-time, I should mentioned Edmund Lyndeck as the Narrator and the Mysterious Man in Into the Woods. In this case, I did always feel something was kind of missing with Tom Aldredge, and Lyndeck had more of what was needed. |
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