The Most Hauntingly Beautiful Images on Stage
The Most Hauntingly Beautiful Images on Stage
#1The Most Hauntingly Beautiful Images on Stage
Posted: 4/9/07 at 7:52pm
There are those times in the theatre where words are not needed. A simple look or gesture can speak volumes and inspire emotions that words can never accomplish.
More often than not, these images are burned into my brain and linger with me for months and even years if they're powerful enough.
What are some of your most memorable images?
My most recent one is from GREY GARDENS.
When the house begins to close in at the end of Act II and Little Edie stares out the window, desperately yearning for freedom after all we've seen her go through...that just brought me to tears. One of the most moving things I've seen in a long while.
"I love talking about nothing. It is the only thing I know anything about." - Oscar Wilde
#2re: The Most Hauntingly Beautiful Images on Stage
Posted: 4/9/07 at 7:54pmThe final image in LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT: Mary Tyrone, in a clean white dress, standing at the edge of the stage bathed in light, as the men in her life sit paralyzed looking on in the background. The true definition of haunting.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
jordangirl
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/1/06
#2re: The Most Hauntingly Beautiful Images on Stage
Posted: 4/9/07 at 7:57pm
The very opening of The Year of Magical Thinking. Music, the wind/wave sound, and the curtain just falls, revealing Vanessa Redgrave and a lone wooden chair on stage.
Then later when she again shows the bracelet she'd described as earlier "like the one I'd given Quintana".
And finally the last curtain drop when the lights go out.
Actually the whole show for me.
Experience live theater. Experience paintings. Experience books. Live, look and listen like artists! ~ imaginethis
LIVE THAT LESSON!!!!!!
LIVE THAT LESSON!!!!!!
vmlinnie
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/19/06
#3re: The Most Hauntingly Beautiful Images on Stage
Posted: 4/9/07 at 7:59pm
Dare I say this: ? 
The rain we knew is a thing of the past -
deep-delving, dark, deliberate you would say
browsing on spire and bogland; but today
our sky-blue slates are steaming in the sun,
our yachts tinkling and dancing in the bay
like racehorses. We contemplate at last
shining windows, a future forbidden to no one.
Derek Mahon
"Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets."
Arthur Miller
deep-delving, dark, deliberate you would say
browsing on spire and bogland; but today
our sky-blue slates are steaming in the sun,
our yachts tinkling and dancing in the bay
like racehorses. We contemplate at last
shining windows, a future forbidden to no one.
Derek Mahon
"Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets."
Arthur Miller
#4re: The Most Hauntingly Beautiful Images on Stage
Posted: 4/9/07 at 7:59pm
Overrated, but Glinda holding Elphaba's hat at the end of Wicked.
Any moment in THE SECRET GARDEN.
"Anybody that goes to the theater, I think we’re all misfits, so we ended up on stage or in the audience.” --- Patti LuPone.
#5re: The Most Hauntingly Beautiful Images on Stage
Posted: 4/9/07 at 7:59pm
The moment when the barricades in "Les Miserables" rotates and we see Enjolras lying dead on it.
The image of Bobby after he blew out the candles on his cake in the Seattle production of "Company."
Haunting in a powerful, stirring way..."The Gods Love Nubia" in "Aida."
Haunting in a creepy way, "The Ballad of Guiteau" in "Assassins."
C is for Company
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/16/05
#6re: The Most Hauntingly Beautiful Images on Stage
Posted: 4/9/07 at 8:00pm
Recently, Little Edie staring out the window in act 2 of GG.
Also, the final scene with the Young Four in 2001 revival of Follies reaching their arms out as their older selves depart the theatre.
There should be a good many more posts after this that I can't wait to read. I love these kinds of things.
thevolleyballer
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/29/04
#7re: The Most Hauntingly Beautiful Images on Stage
Posted: 4/9/07 at 8:00pmIf done correctly, there are several scenes in "The Secret Garden" that can definitely be classified as a theatrically gorgeous sort of 'spooky.' Mary's and Neville's scenes with the dead women (names -- Lily and Rose, maybe? -- elude) have the potential to be hauntingly brilliant onstage.
Yankeefan007
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/20/04
#8re: The Most Hauntingly Beautiful Images on Stage
Posted: 4/9/07 at 8:02pm
Jack O'Brien's breath-taking opening sequences of all 3 Coast of Utopia parts - the wind, the bells, the haunting music, and then, finally, the waves and Herzen in the chair, clutching the glove.
The ending of part 3, as well, with all of them in front of the beautiful mural.
***
The image of Jim Tyrone in Josie Hogan's lap in the Quintero/Robards/Dewhurst Moon for the Misbegotten
G_Schlozinski2
Leading Actor Joined: 3/23/07
#9re: The Most Hauntingly Beautiful Images on Stage
Posted: 4/9/07 at 8:03pm
the meeting of opposing armies in Robert Wilson's staging of Satyagraha at BAM, hands down.
Updated On: 4/9/07 at 08:03 PM
ElFantasma14
Broadway Star Joined: 9/26/06
#10re: The Most Hauntingly Beautiful Images on Stage
Posted: 4/9/07 at 8:04pm
Clara in shadow (I know there's a word for this sort of representation where everything is in black) walking slowly in front of a gorgeous yellow background. Transfixing, in my opinion. You can really feel her sorrow and yearning.
EDIT: Silhouette was the word!
Updated On: 4/9/07 at 08:04 PM
#11re: The Most Hauntingly Beautiful Images on Stage
Posted: 4/9/07 at 8:05pm
Josie's final line in A MOON FOR THE MISBEGOTTEN always kills me:
May you have your wish and die in your sleep soon, Jim, darling. May you rest forever in forgiveness and peace.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
#12re: The Most Hauntingly Beautiful Images on Stage
Posted: 4/9/07 at 8:05pm
Recently, the staging of the last 15 minutes of Grey Gardens beginning with "Choose to be Happy."
There are many more I'll think of later.
#13re: The Most Hauntingly Beautiful Images on Stage
Posted: 4/9/07 at 8:06pm
I agree with Yankee on "COAST OF UTOPIA", the opening for each of the shows are breathtaking. I also have to add the closing sequence for Part 3: SALVAGE. When the "new generation" of revolutionaries looks toward the image of "utopia", with Herzen, Bakunin, and Ogarev sitting just staring at the audience, I was totally haunted.
EDIT:
A hauntingly SEXY image: (Another COU one) Dream Ethan Hawke at the end of Part Two: Shipwreck one the hull of the "boat" speaking to Herzen, with Ethan smoking a cigarette looking like the very image of sex itself. Whenever I have a bad day, I just think of that image, and everything is all right.
"Are you sorry for civilization? I am sorry for it too." ~Coast of Utopia: Shipwreck
Updated On: 4/9/07 at 08:06 PM
#14re: The Most Hauntingly Beautiful Images on Stage
Posted: 4/9/07 at 8:07pmCurtain call for Journey's End, and the moments before. I wont give anything away, but it was amazing. I've never quite cried like that during a theatrical experience, and I usually don't get choked up.
#15re: The Most Hauntingly Beautiful Images on Stage
Posted: 4/9/07 at 8:11pm
"Entering Grey Gardens" from Grey Gardens - besides the song itself, the staging of it was my favorite part!
The leopard/Tarzan confrontation/battle in Tarzan (with the red lighting, etc.)
BroadwayBoobs: I'll give all of you who weren't there a hint of who took the pictures ...it rhymes with shameless
SOMMS: I knew it was Tink!
Smartful Dodger
Featured Actor Joined: 3/23/05
#16re: The Most Hauntingly Beautiful Images on Stage
Posted: 4/9/07 at 8:16pm
What YankeeFan wrote, YES, about THE COAST OF UTOPIA.
Also, I think another tremendously powerful moment was in AGNES OF GOD (1982-83), when Agnes runs to the back of the stage, throws herself face first against the curved/sloped back wall, and slides with her face to the ground, her hands streaking the blonde wood of the set with bright red blood, a la a crucifixion. It was startling and haunts me 25 years later...
Updated On: 4/9/07 at 08:16 PM
#17re: The Most Hauntingly Beautiful Images on Stage
Posted: 4/9/07 at 8:19pmThe image of Victoria Clark in front of those church gates in Piazza durring "Fable" was quite spectacular, as was the entire production by Bartlett Sher.
#18re: The Most Hauntingly Beautiful Images on Stage
Posted: 4/9/07 at 8:19pm
My favorite is from Passion, when Fosca descends down the staircase..ah, chills!
When the barricade in Les Mis turns and we see Enjolras & Gavroche, that's my favorite.
And, lastly, the finale of "Gimme Gimme" when Millie stretches her arms out..I love the lighting in that scene!
danhattan
Stand-by Joined: 3/31/05
#19re: The Most Hauntingly Beautiful Images on Stage
Posted: 4/9/07 at 8:22pm
I totally agree with you FOAnatic. The moment the house started to come together in Grey Gardens my heart just broke! It was a truly incredible moment.
Other Beautiful images/Chill bumps...
*First time I saw WICKED and Elphaba flew up in Defying Gravity. Thought it was an amazing moment of musical theatre.
*The end of Act 1 in The Pirate Queen with the fire and sky full of stars is just BREATH TAKING.
*And last but not least... the tattered sail the women bring down for Sea of Life.
My two cents! :)
jo
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/15/03
#21re: The Most Hauntingly Beautiful Images on Stage
Posted: 4/9/07 at 8:24pm
*I agree about the barricade scene from Les Miserables, as the barricade turn slowly around and you see the dead young men lying there, with the flash of red from the flag they valiantly waved. What makes the scene even more poignant is the soft strains of BRING HIM HOME playing in the background.
*In the original Man of La Mancha with Richard Kiley which played in a theatre in the round, the sight of Miguel Cervantes slowly going up the long stairs ( on a stage that was starkly bare), on the way to his inquisition and possible execution...after he has told the story of the idealist/insane knight, Don Quijote.
*In the Australian arena version of THE BOY FROM OZ... against the stark backdrop of a solitary windmill from the outback, Hugh Jackman, as Peter Allen, sits slowly on the staircase leading down to the audience and sings the poignant ballad of the TENTERFIELD SADDLER. It was one of the most touching 11 o'clock numbers I have ever seen.
*For sheer beauty - when the backdrop of the beautiful Pyreenees Mountains unfolded in ASPECTS OF LOVE. The scenery was so beautiful and evocative of this undiscovered area of Southwestern France that the audience started clapping in sheer awe.
*For a beautiful combination of sight and sound -- the scene in THE WOMAN IN WHITE where the two sisters and the artist initially explore their feelings, against the backdrop of a small waterfall, with the sound of the water gently falling. A very tantalizing courtship scene - as we did not know yet who will fall in love with each other of this triangle.
*No particular scene I can identify, but PASSION evoked many haunting images for me.
#22re: The Most Hauntingly Beautiful Images on Stage
Posted: 4/9/07 at 8:24pmAnother Piazza one...when Clara is dressed all in white for her wedding, walks across the stage behind the gates during Clara's Interlude right before Love to Me. STUNNING!
#23re: The Most Hauntingly Beautiful Images on Stage
Posted: 4/9/07 at 8:25pmIt was a beautiful image, but it really did a number on my eyes. God were those lights bright.
#24re: The Most Hauntingly Beautiful Images on Stage
Posted: 4/9/07 at 8:27pm
Bernadette Peters with her arms wrapped around her body, bathed in that single spotlight at the end of "Rose's Turn."
Gorgeous.
"I love talking about nothing. It is the only thing I know anything about." - Oscar Wilde
