| Yes, AND... (plus thoughts on another great Molina, Juan Chioran, in Man of La Mancha) | |
| Posted by: DanielVincent 05:30 pm EDT 08/07/20 | |
| In reply to: Brent Carver's Tevye. - portenopete 04:05 pm EDT 08/07/20 | |
|
|
|
| Portenopete said so much and said it so beautifully, I have very little to add to the conversation. It was the first, and perhaps only, time I've seen a Fiddler where Tevye's foremost quality was his love for his children. It defined Carver's Tevye. And so when he rejected Chava, it was devastating--for him and the audience. The emotional impact was ASTONISHING. I wept like I have rarely wept in the theatre, before or since. On a personal note, I was a teenager nearing the end of high school when I saw the production. It was in Carver's performance and especially in his relationship with Chava that I came to understand I had lived my life and my relationship with my father with what I now know is commonly referred to as "best little boy in the world" syndrome. My very armchair understanding of it is that it's when a gay child pushes himself to be perfect in every way in the hope that his perfection will cause family members to forgive him for being gay. The performance quite literally changed my understanding of myself and how I navigated my relationship with my Dad. Portenopete, it's interesting that you say Carver would have been an incredible Don Quixote because, to this day, my favorite Man of La Mancha--both show and performance as the title character--was the production I saw at Stratford, directed by Susan H. Schulman (whom I believe directed Carver's Fiddler), and starring Juan Chioran, who was a Molina in the first national tour of Spider Woman and a standby for the role on Broadway. As different as Don Quixote and Molina are, and as different as Chioran was in each role, his performance also highlighted some crucial similarities: a certain longing; a dedication to an ideal world; a willingness to blur the lines between fantasy and reality; and an elegance that as Molina was filtered through the lens of feminine ideals and silver screen glamour and as Quixote was filtered through the lens of chivalry. |
|
| reply | |
|
|
|
| Previous: | re: Brent Carver's Tevye. - sf 07:34 am EDT 08/09/20 |
| Next: | The Chioran/Carver Connection. - portenopete 04:17 pm EDT 08/08/20 |
| Thread: |
|
Time to render: 0.010583 seconds.