| re: What was Marie Osmond like on Broadway? | |
| Posted by: JereNYC (JereNYC@aol.com) 11:03 am EDT 06/28/21 | |
| In reply to: What was Marie Osmond like on Broadway? - shocktheatre 06:39 pm EDT 06/27/21 | |
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| I saw Marie Osmond in THE KING AND I. It was the third time, out of four, that I'd seen that production and I'd previously seen Faith Prince, after she'd taken over from Donna Murphy, and Hayley Mills in the national tour. And I would later see Elaine Paige do it in London. Sadly, I missed Murphy in the role. I thought Osmond was fine and agreed with some critic at the time who stated that she gave a very traditional Rodgers and Hammerstein performance that only seemed less interesting because her predecessors had been seen to reinvent the role in many ways. As stated, I didn't see Murphy, but I thought Prince was a revelation in the role. At the time she had recently become a star as Miss Adelaide in GUYS AND DOLLS and had been mainly occupied with comedic roles on stage and screen in the years since. And her Anna certainly brought the comedy, but there was also a sadness and poignancy that really got to me after Prince made me laugh. I'd never seen an Anna who was so funny in the role and the pay off to that was you really didn't see the rest of it coming, even if you knew the show. Mills was just ideal in every way. She had a limited singing voice, but I felt that seeing her must have been akin to seeing Gertrude Lawrence in the original production. Her limited singing ability didn't matter because the whole package was so perfect. You felt that she was this character. I believe she was the only actual English actress (although the character states that she is Welsh, I don't think I've ever heard of any actress playing her that way) to play the role in this production until it opened in the West End with Paige. Osmond sang and acted the role well...there was just nothing extra there. No interpretation that made you see anything in a new way. One thing that was kind of funny at the performance I saw...she must have lost her footing at the end of "Shall We Dance?" because she sorted of floated to the floor in lovely manner, perfectly in time, and sat there, something that I'd not seen before in this production. When her King (and I no longer remember which King this was...maybe Kevin Grey?) said "Come...we do it again" for the encore, he basically reached down and pulled her up off the floor to him and held her in the air one-handed for a moment to allow her to regain her footing. It was really incredible and they played it as though they did that every night. It made the King seem incredibly physically strong as the actor must have been to have been able to do this. The Broadway production closed fairly soon after Osmond joined the show and she later joined the tour, replacing Mills for a short time. Osmond was, in turn, replaced on tour by Maureen McGovern, who I heard was terrific in the role. Prince also played some of the tour dates because Mills started missing performances and the producers made the decision to fly Prince out to the road at, at least, one stop, and have the standby do the show in New York. |
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