I am guessing that Phylicia Rashad was brought in as a way to keep interest high in what was the top-billed role (although it is very much an ensemble show). She was at the height of her Cosby Show fame and presumably she did her three-month stint when the TV show was on hiatus.
I was not a Cosby fan so she wasn't an exciting replacement for me. I had bad luck with Bernadette as I saw Sunday in the Park just a week or so after she left. I finally got to see her in Gypsy, thank God, even though I remember Maureen Moore went on quite regularly in that.
My main memory of Rashad was her imprecise diction. I'm never a lover of sloppy consonants in any song (nor am I a lover of extreme and unnatural crispness) but in Sondheim and specifically in a song like The Witch's Rap, it was kind of lethal. She had great warmth and her vocal tone was beautiful, but if I hadn't listened to the OCR a thousand times I doubt I'd have been able to get much of what she was saying. |
