| Rose Tattoo with Jerry Orbach | |
| Posted by: aleck 08:04 am EDT 08/25/22 | |
| In reply to: Anyone ever see Maureen Stapleton on stage? - bobby2 11:40 pm EDT 08/24/22 | |
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| This was in Philly at the Walnut Street Theatre in 1975. It was billed as the 25th Anniversary production. I see that a poster below mentioned seeing her in Rose Tattoo, but that might be a reference to the 1966 Broadway revival. I remember being baffled by the performance. I knew that Stapleton was famed for the part, but I sure couldn't understand why based on what I saw. I kept trying to analyze what was wrong. Although she was 50 at the time and originally was 25 when first performed in Chicago in 1950, I don't think that the character's age really should have made any difference. And clearly Jerry Orbach playing opposite her was much younger, but that wouldn't have been a problem with this play (unlike the 40-plus Sutton Foster in Music Man!). I don't think the character's ages would have mattered, although at 25 Maureen would have been pretty young to have a teenaged daughter but not impossible. I guess. Maybe it was the production itself that did not serve her performance, but who knows. I was in a bad mood? She was in a bad mood? Orbach was all skinny, tall angles. Stapleton was a short and round. I was young in 1975 and those things mattered to me. (When I saw Chicago in Philly during its tryout, I was offended by the "elderly" Gwen Verdon -- at 50 or so -- and Chita in those skimpy costumes. I remember remarking to my date as we left, "They should put some clothes on those old women.") That Philly Rose Tattoo production was part of a series of serious plays that brought in stars (kind of like Kenley Players for a serious winter season). None of the productions were very effective. There was Geraldine Page and Rip Torn in Little Foxes, with Page at her most excessive worst. She was never still. Fussing with bits of business throughout everyone else's lines. It was really a selfish performance. A production of Death of a Salesman with Martin Balsam and Teresa Wright was no better. Balsam just was not up to the task. And Wright was just too pretty to be believable in the part. She did the part opposite George C. Scott in NY about that time. Maybe that would have worked better. Balsam was no Scott. There was also a production of Long Day's Journey which reunited the NY cast with Geraldine Fitzgerald and Robert Ryan. That performance was marred by a large group of high school students who wouldn't stop talking. There was a din that almost drowned out the performance. Finally, Fitzgerald broke character, stepped to the edge of the stage, and told the kids to be quiet in a very forceful manner. (That reminds me of the time I saw the Natasha Richardson production of Streetcar at a matinee with hordes of high school kids who cheered the rape scene. That was one of the lowest points I've ever experienced in a theater, although when John C. Reilly removed his shirt I almost vomited. If I wanted to look at some pasty white fat man I could stay home and look in the mirror. At the time, I thought that Streetcar performance was the worst professional production of a play I had ever seen until that evening when I went to see the Jessica Lange Glass Menagerie. I fled at intermission. Williams was not well served that day.) |
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