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. |
