She was really great. Entire cast was electric. Amazing set design and lighting, too. One of those plays that you feel like you held your breath through the whole thing.
I saw it as well...TWICE...once with the original leads...Ashley, Page and Plummer and then when Miss Diahann Carroll took over. Great play. I agree with Dallaslive's assessment. It really does need a revival.
Roundabout did a reading about five years ago with Viola Davis as Dr. Livingstone, Anne Hathaway as Agnes, and Lynn Redgrave as Mother Superior, directed by Doug Hughes.
It was apparently incredible, but they never got it off the ground, presumably because of scheduling issues with that particular cast (though I have a hard time thinking Hathaway would have made her Broadway debut in a part that pales in comparison to the other two in the play.)
Tonya Pinkins: Then we had a "Lot's Wife" last June that was my personal favorite. I'm still trying to get them to let me sing it at some performance where we get to sing an excerpt that's gone.
Tony Kushner: You can sing it at my funeral.
This is one of those productions that I've always said, "if I could go back in time"- the text is very well written and I adore Elizabeth Ashley- I think she is one of those actresses who were born for the stage- such presence!
Saw the original with Ashley, Page and Plummer. The play itself is kind of heavy handed but it has three great roles for three great actresses. The night I saw it the stage manager came out and announced that Elizabeth Ashley had broken her toe getting out of bed that morning and that she would be performing the show "using a cane and wearing sensible shoes". Ashley, no stranger to ham acting, used that cane to great comic effect.
Saw this play 3 times in one week - the only time I've ever done that. Cast was Diahann Carroll, Geraldine Page and Maryann Plunkett. All were excellent, Ms. Page was electrifying. After an evening performance, I was getting autographs (again) and three twenty-something Afro-American girls approached Ms. Carroll to autograph their Dreamgirls programs. (It was playing next door at the Imperial.) She looked at the program then looked at the girls and asked: Have you seen my show yet? They said they hadn't. She smiled and replied, as she handed the unsigned program back: After you see Agnes of God I'll sign your programs.
"The gods who nurse this universe think little of mortals' cares. They sit in crowds on exclusive clouds and laugh at our love affairs. I might have had a real romance if they'd given me a chance. I loved him, but he didn't love me. I wanted him, but he didn't want me. Then the gods had a spree and indulged in another whim. Now he loves me, but I don't love him." - Cole Porter
i've always been curious about cherry jones' statements in the extended features of rick mckay's golden age. she says of plummer, 'of my generation, she is the genius, she is the touched one; and touched with the greatness of the ages. and i just wish she would come back and devote the rest of her life to the theater, because there's no one who can touch her.'
I know she did summer and smoke a few years ago, but for people who have seen her, do you agree with jones' assessment? what about her work in pygmalion, a tase of honey?
well, there may be some truth to that. she had one scene in the television series battlestar galactica. she was playing a type of medium, and her work is so interesting. varied and rhythmic. yet cutting and efficient.
I haven't seen it in a long time, either. I was an early teen, too. Like 13 or 14? Anyway, Amanda was was what's her face in Garp. Ellen something? She was really good is all I was saying.
I also remember one year when I was a kid she was up for a Tony Award. And my dad made some snarky comment about her, because they showed her once, and when they showed her later she was wearing a sweater. And I just remember him being really quippy about it!
I saw with Ashley, Page, and Plummer. All were excellent, but Plummer gave me chills. When she threw herself against the upstage wall and slid down to the floor, the whole audience gasped. It was scary real. And this was one of my first Broadway shows.
Amanda Plummer had a cameo in THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP film as Ellen James. Her character is the inspiration for The Ellen Jamesons, a radical, extremist, feminist group. I won't spoil what The Ellen Jamesons stand for and promote but it will blow your mind when you find out. If you haven't read the book you should, it is one of the masterpieces of 20th century fiction.
Plummer has only one scene and no dialogue in GARP and she still leaves an impression 30 years later. For perhaps her best screen work, I recommend the imperfect but unjustly forgotten 1983 Sidney Lumet/E.L. Doctorow drama DANIEL (Timothy Hutton, Mandy Patinkin, Lindsay Crouse, Tovah Feldshuh, Ellen Barkin). She has the lead in an upcoming indie (ABIGAIL HARM), and is cast in the HUNGER GAMES sequel. She's never stopped working in indies and TV (three Emmy Awards), but dang we need her back on the New York stage! (Love the Cherry Jones quote.) Maybe, like her father, her prime is ahead of her.
An aside: Why does the "cray cray" moniker only get applied to female performers? An actress who clearly relishes quirky roles and has worked non-stop in film, television, and theatre for 30 straight years isn't presently working on the New York stage, so she must be "cray cray" (subtext: difficult)? Interesting.