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| re: I should mention at this point that I thought Sigourney Weaver gave a wonderful, perfectly gauged, heartfelt performance in THE GUYS.... | |
| Posted by: Michael_Portantiere 12:18 pm EDT 04/11/21 | |
| In reply to: re: I should mention at this point that I thought Sigourney Weaver gave a wonderful, perfectly gauged, heartfelt performance in THE GUYS.... - mikem 11:46 am EDT 04/11/21 | |
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| ***I think part of the issue with Weaver here is that her acting choices clash with those of the rest of the cast. Masha lives in a world of her own that doesn't always have much resemblance to the real world. Her comments about her acting abilities or her resume are what she wishes were the truth. She is always playing to an audience, but it's not clear how much she truly believes what she is saying. Despite her words, that she is so threatened by Nina means that she knows on some level that Spike is not truly interested in her. Weaver says many of her lines in a semi-artificial way that kind of highlights this, but the other characters are all at least somewhat grounded in reality, and no one else is doing this. So Weaver really sticks out as sounding phony to me. Also, Weaver's long history with Durang may mean that she's highlighting the artificial/surreal aspect of his characters, but she's the only one doing it.*** I think you're absolutely right about this, but the issue is that many people seem to feel Weaver wasn't able to properly calibrate her performance to play Masha in a way that communicated what the character was supposed to be while also meshing with the style of performances beginning given by the other actors. Yes, Masha is written as a very different kind of person from Vanya and Sonia, but I don't think it's supposed to come across as if she's in a different play. I've always thought of Nicholas Martin as a wonderfully talented director, but maybe he bore some responsibility for Weaver's misguided performance. Or, who knows, maybe she was a big enough name and had such a long history with Durang that Martin felt he should just leave her on her own. |
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| re: I should mention at this point that I thought Sigourney Weaver gave a wonderful, perfectly gauged, heartfelt performance in THE GUYS.... | |
| Posted by: mikem 02:37 pm EDT 04/11/21 | |
| In reply to: re: I should mention at this point that I thought Sigourney Weaver gave a wonderful, perfectly gauged, heartfelt performance in THE GUYS.... - Michael_Portantiere 12:18 pm EDT 04/11/21 | |
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| I agree that Weaver seemed to be acting in a totally different play from everyone else. I also agree with you that Martin was a very talented director, and I speculate that your second hypothesis may be correct: Weaver was a big star and a box office draw, and the playwright was happy with what she was doing, so Martin let her do it in a certain way. When Julie White took over, her interpretation was much more integrated with that of the rest of the cast, so I don't think that Martin necessarily felt that Weaver's choices were the "correct" ones. For myself, whatever Weaver was trying to do didn't work, whether the issue was the concept or the execution. |
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