as much as I enjoy watching her Tonys performance on youtube to get a good laugh (I know, I'm totally going to hell for that) the performance that the voters saw was NOT the manic performance that she gave on camera. She deserved her Tony fair and square.
If this is stuck in your craw this long, you either live quite the charmed life or something miserable one.
Above poster is right, the Tony performance was not indicative of her stage performance.
If we're not having fun, then why are we doing it?
These are DISCUSSION boards, not mutual admiration boards. Discussion only occurs when we are willing to hear what others are thinking, regardless of whether it is alignment to our own thoughts.
I thought she was terrific in the role...perfectly cast as an actress of a certain age, but still beautiful, easy to see how men would throw themselves at her, great chemistry between her and Angela Lansbury as her mother, singing was more than fine...I also saw Bernadette and Elaine, and felt they brought different, equally wonderful, colors to their roles...both Bernadette and CZJ made the most of Send In the Clowns...and the overall production was beautifully directed...in my opinion, CZJ deserved her Tony...just lucky she wasn't in a very competitive year like some of the more recent years...
You can't really base her performance on that Tony clip. I mean it's basically a sustained extreme close up of a performance that's supposed to read to the balcony. At the Kerr, she was wonderful and absolutely was a great casting choice. I also saw Bernadette and Elaine and they brought an altogether excellent interpretation to the roles.
"Hey little girls, look at all the men in shiny shirts and no wives!" - Jackie Hoffman, Xanadu, 19 Feb 2008
I want to give CZJ some props. Yes, it's true the Tony's have (or at least had) a tendency to give awards to A-list movie stars for reasons other than the quality of their work alone - but at the same time, from the clips I saw (never got to see the ALNM revival unfortunately, to my regret) of her performance, she did a pretty solid job!
It's sad that her Tony Performance is all people remember. I had many issues with this production but Zeta-Jones was not one of them. A lovely performance full of true star quality. Even the cast recording doesn't truly capture how great she was.
I saw her performance live and she was a hot mess. She looked great, but her performance was all over the place. She performed Send in the Clowns just as she did on the Tonys. I loved her in Chicago, but she came off as a little psychotic in ALNM.
icecreambenjamin said: "I saw her performance live and she was a hot mess. She looked great, but her performance was all over the place. She performed Send in the Clowns just as she did on the Tonys. I loved her in Chicago, but she came off as a little psychotic in ALNM.
Hey Broadwayconcierge, I was more referring to some of the upset among the Broadway community with the Tony's and Broadway in general being more about Hollywood and A-list movie stars, with stuff done and people nominated for ratings - Hunter Foster was really passionate about that debate, but it seems like, as you mentioned with J Hud not getting a nomination, that trend has changed!
Zeta-Jones was really wonderful in ALNM. My theory is that Catherine was used to a small house, suddenly thrust into the vastness that is Radio City Music Hall, trying to play to the mile-away rafters and close-up cameras. I think the same thing happened this past year, to some degree, with Jessie Mueller's performance in the Beacon. She was all kinds of herky-jerky, grabbing at the couch and stumbling around, FAR more so than she is at the much smaller Brooks Atkinson.
Art has a double face, of expression and illusion.
I saw her in it three times and she was stupendous. Also, her only competition was apparently Montego Glover in Memphis that year, who certainly didn't deserve it over Catherine.
ljay889 said: "icecreambenjamin said: "I saw her performance live and she was a hot mess. She looked great, but her performance was all over the place. She performed Send in the Clowns just as she did on the Tonys. I loved her in Chicago, but she came off as a little psychotic in ALNM.
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I believe you saw her performance on a bootleg.
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No I saw her performance live from the mezzanine. I saw it near the end of her run.