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| re: has it been said why they didn't replace Lansbury with a name? | |
| Last Edit: Delvino 07:26 pm EST 12/19/22 | |
| Posted by: Delvino 07:26 pm EST 12/19/22 | |
| In reply to: re: has it been said why they didn't replace Lansbury with a name? - AlanScott 06:06 pm EST 12/19/22 | |
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| I saw Loudon’s second performance, which was enthusiastically greeted by a NY fan base that spelled initial excitement. I realize that early cheers for a beloved star - and she was a theater star - are a Broadway regularity. But there was much enthusiasm when she was announced. I thought she was game, and delivered the sizable Lovett I prefer. It needs that musical hall component to counter Sweeney’s grim gravity, and Loudon gave unstintingly. She went up in “By the Sea” (covering masterfully) but by then had the audience with her. I was in my late 20s and didn’t follow box office but presumed she was a draw. Yes, I bought my weeknight seat at TKTS, rear orchestra, which is itself a comment on her impact. | |
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| re: has it been said why they didn't replace Lansbury with a name? | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 02:57 pm EST 12/20/22 | |
| In reply to: re: has it been said why they didn't replace Lansbury with a name? - Delvino 07:26 pm EST 12/19/22 | |
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| Because of the size of the theatre, it was often up at the TKTS booth even during the first year. A week and a half before Cariou and Lansbury's last performance, I even picked up a seat at TKTS, although it was in the balcony. The house was packed that night, but I guess there were enough empty seats in the balcony to have been sent over. And some nights during the winter, I am sure you could have gotten pretty decent seats at the TKTS booth. I liked much of what Loudon did. I found her "By the Sea," however, disappointingly small, which I thought hurt the show. In general, I felt her performance was surprisingly a bit smaller than I might have expected, although from time to time she would suddenly mug in a way that seemed very out of place. For me, it was an interesting performance full of intelligence and here and there brilliance, but not quite fully successful. Closing week, however, she seems to have suddenly jumped up to another level, perhaps because finally they were playing to big houses. Her performance was certainly very, very far from Lansbury's. I don't know how much was Prince directing to her to give a different performance than Lansbury's (and Sondheim perhaps coaching her to do some very different things) and how much was her own concept. Hearn was also very different from Cariou, although years later he said that he imitated Cariou when he first did it. Didn't look that way to me, nor to anyone else I knew back then who was in a position to compare them. |
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