| Brent Carver's Tevye. | |
| Posted by: portenopete 04:05 pm EDT 08/07/20 | |
| In reply to: re: I couldn't agree more about his Tevye. - Billhaven 03:00 pm EDT 08/07/20 | |
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| Basically he made you come to him. Possessing none of the attributes of a traditional Tevye- bombast, girth, chutzpah, clownishness- he brought his quiet, thoughtful demeanour and deep reservoir of feeling and made the part his own. For anyone who felt Alfred Molina's Tevye was too goysiche, Brent's made you think about what might have happened if Rolf Gruber had been born in 1880's Russia instead of 1920's Salzburg: his delicate, fine-boned, blue-eyed face seemed ludicrous for Tevye and many people laughed when the casting was announced. But from the second the lights slowly came up on him he set the parameters for what we'd be seeing: he made us lean in and listen and reconsider what an impoverished father of five would have looked and sounded like in turn-of-the-century Russia. He was no borscht belt tummler, yet I don't remember him missing any laughs. he was no Lear on the heath, yet I don't remember an ounce of rage sacrificed. And in the quieter moments- with Hodel at the station, fighting his instinct to run and hold Chava when she returns after marrying Fyedka- the depth of feeling was predictably overwhelming. He was as "in the moment" as any actor I have ever witnessed. He'd have been an incredible Don Quixote and I can't believe he didn't sing "Dulcinea" in his concerts and cabarets: his relationship with the great actress Susan Wright who died in a fire in his house in 1991 while he was in NYC doing Spider-Woman would have resulted in an astonishing production of Man of La Mancha. And I'd love to have seen what he'd have done with other unlikely roles like Harold Hill, perhaps? His need for Broadway stardom was negligible so he went and did the projects that appealed to him and then came back and played Shakespeare at Stratford and Moliere in Toronto and new plays in tiny theatres in Toronto. And he'd take on small parts, too: the last shows I saw him in he played Larry in Company, Antigonus in The Winter's Tale and Lucio (not so small) in Measure for Measure. He was a star from the get-go and New York was lucky to have him in our orbit for awhile. |
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| Previous: | re: I couldn't agree more about his Tevye. - Billhaven 03:00 pm EDT 08/07/20 |
| Next: | re: Brent Carver's Tevye. - sf 07:34 am EDT 08/09/20 |
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