The Rink 1984- Page 2

[Playbilly]

Posted: 5/6/13 at 8:20pm

Never saw the show or heard the whole ORC. If they were to revive, which current actresses could star?

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 5/6/13 at 8:41pm

DAME, I don't need testimony from John Kander. The show itself is proof of your account of its creation. Thanks.

[DAME]

Posted: 5/6/13 at 9:11pm

Huh? What?

[DAME]

Posted: 5/6/13 at 9:12pm

So sorry. That time of my life was so special to me. I do like talking about it. I do go on and on.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 5/6/13 at 9:51pm

DAME, sorry if I wasn't clear.

What I meant is that it was clear from the show that "Angel" wasn't originally written for Liza Minnelli. I believe your account without confirmation from John Kander.

And please feel free to go on and on any time. As I've said before, everyone has a scroll bar, but I, for one, am always happy to hear what you have to say.

Updated On: 5/6/13 at 09:51 PM

[all that jazz]

Posted: 5/6/13 at 9:58pm

Make that two of us!

Any stories or legends from Broadway's history, am excited to read, specially if it involves Liza and Chita.

[logan2]

Posted: 5/7/13 at 1:08am

DAME, I also live for your stories. How wonderful that you were able to work at that theater during that run. Please tell us more. I did a search for NY Post articles on the gossip on The Rink, but found nothing because it was so long ago. Could you fill us in on what all the gossip was at the time?

[Leadingplayer]

Posted: 5/7/13 at 4:25am

I remember it was kind of shocking when Liza went to rehab. (maybe because I was so young) You didn't really hear much about stars and rehab in those days...it was kind of kept secret.

[The Other One]

Posted: 5/7/13 at 6:46am

Actually, the 80s is when everyone started going to rehab. It seemed to jump-start a few careers. Mary Tyler Moore, Dick Van Dyke and a few others found themselves in the news again after dry spells.

I liked THE RINK, although it had an everything but the kitchen sink quality. I don't like the revisions another poster described above. If it were to be revived, and I doubt that it would be, I would hope we would see the original version.

Chita danced less than she did in most of her shows, but vocally and dramatically was at her absolute peak. Liza gave an excellent dramatic performance, but her singing had a worn out quality she could not always get around. I do not believe she lip-synced one note. She had, a few years earlier, lip-synced one song in THE ACT, and it brought her a lot of negative publicity.

I remember reading that most of the album was recorded around the time the show opened, but that Liza did not record her tracks until later, when she'd had a chance to rest her voice.

[D2]

Posted: 5/7/13 at 7:55am

RE: the lip syncing.

I will defer to DAME about that; he was there 8 times a week, I wasn't. I remember it being in THE RINK, but it was nearly 30 years ago and perhaps I confused it with THE ACT.

[After Eight]

Posted: 5/7/13 at 8:15am

I thought the whole shebang was preposterous from beginning to end, some of it laughably so. I loved both Chita and Liza, though. My two favorite songs were/are "Angel's Rink and Social Center" and "Wallflower." Liza is in peak form in "Angel's Rink."

[logan2]

Posted: 5/7/13 at 12:24pm

I'm lucky enough to have seen one of the videos floating around. I realize it's not a great show, but with Chita and Liza together on stage I find it irresistable. Great songs and great performances make it a wonderful guilty pleasure.

When I saw Chita doing her one woman show in Galveston, I had her sign my CD copy. She said, "Oh look what you have", and I, for some reason, just burst out singing the line without thinking - "Chief cook and bottle washer." She replied in song as she signed "that's all I ever was!" So now I will always get to tell the story of how I sang with Chita Rivera! She's such a gracious lady.



Updated On: 5/7/13 at 12:24 PM

[Jon]

Posted: 5/7/13 at 12:45pm

I think the revisions were meant to put more of the emphasis on Anna, and less on Angel. The show was originally intended as Chita's starring vehicle, with Angel as support. When Liza was added to the show, her role was padded a bit. In the revision, Anna's "Chief Cook and Bottle Washer" is the first number. "Angel's Rink" was just another chance for Angel to be manic. I think "Wallflower" was cut because A) it was just ANOTHER duet for the two women, who'd done "The Apple Doesn't Fall" some 20 minutes earlier, and B)it followed the title song - a showstopper with all the roller skating.

[DAME]

Posted: 5/7/13 at 1:08pm

Logan, What a great story. FYI.. Liza and Chita were the hosts for the Kander and Ebb segment of the Tonys that year. Liza went into rehab shortly after. In the Tonys one of the numbers Liza performs is "YES". She totally missed her entrance and came running on stage with a shoe in hand while the number already started. She totally recovered.. It would have gone unnoticed as just one of those things that happens in a live telecast. But since she went into rehab the incident was picked up by some of the rags. The main source of broadway dish those days ( at least for me) was the NY POST . Mostly from Cindy Adam and blind items in they Page 6 ( which had different content and format in those days). Liz Smith was also on the Post. But she became a champion for the show writing about it in a few of her columns and always in a positive way.

[DAME]

Posted: 5/7/13 at 1:09pm

Here it is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-UUbyeDQMs

[logan2]

Posted: 5/9/13 at 2:19am

DAME, that's a great clip and shows what a powerhouse Liza was even with troubles that would very soon send her to rehab. Impressive.

I've always been obsessed with The Act and wish there was those things we aren't supposed to mention floating around for that production. I always wanted a firmer grasp of the story line. I actually stole the lp from my local library way back in the early eighties. Wow, I can't believe I just admitted that. Now I've got to go to church on Sunday.

Updated On: 5/9/13 at 02:19 AM

[Brian07663NJ]

Posted: 5/9/13 at 7:55am

logan2 YES Chita is an amazingly sweet, talented and wonderful person. When Kiss of the Spiderwoman came out I was 20 and eagerly waited before a matinee by the stagedoor for her to arrive. I hoped that she would sign my CD. I waited. Paced. In those days eBay had yet to destroy the relative ease of requesting an autograph. In any event, I saw Chita coming down the block with dry cleaning in hand. A stagehand saw her and ran to her aid. I feared that he would notify her that someone was waiting for her. As she was within 10 feet of the door she opened her arms and smiled. "You've been waiting for me!" She hugged me and kissed me saying "Now you can tell everyone that you've been kissed by the Spiderwoman!" Yes she even signed my CD. So after that it is no great surprise that I've followed her career ever since: to Atlantic City when she performed her show at Resorts Casino, to Pittsburgh to see Casper the Musical, to The Visit in Arlington, VA and her NYC appearance.

[Owen22]

Posted: 5/9/13 at 11:53am

I remember Chita singing and dancing and acting in a wonderful showbiz manner. Very presentational, old school.

Liza's voice was semi-shot, but what I remember most about her performance was the realness, the truth. It seemed a direct contrast to Chita's style.

We sometimes forget that, for a little while, Liza Minnelli was the Meryl Streep of that generation (Meryl has actually said she would go to see "The Act" many times to study her.)

[logan2]

Posted: 5/9/13 at 2:28pm

Great story Brian, and I am forever jealous that you got to see her in The Visit. She was amazing in Spiderwoman on the tour I saw in Houston. I became obsessed with Chita in the 90's and try to collect all she does.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 5/9/13 at 2:41pm

"I've always been obsessed with The Act and wish there was those things we aren't supposed to mention floating around for that production."

There are several that are pretty easy to find...

[morosco]

Posted: 5/9/13 at 2:51pm

Are those notes that Chita hits on the "scratch my back" lyric in The Apple Doesn't Fall the lowest notes ever sung by a female in Broadway history?

[Someone in a Tree2]

Posted: 5/9/13 at 2:54pm

So much sadness reading this thread, and hearing the painful (and honest) criticisms of a show my friends and I were absolutely in love with when it first played the Martin Beck back in '84. We caught it once in previews and 3 more times over its run. We were absolutely gobsmacked by the writing, the perfectly wrought music and lyrics, the surefooted direction by the much-missed A J Antoon, the effortless and witty use of the male ensemble to people the entire cast of characters from callow boys to aging grandmas.

Seeing Chita perform "Hey Mrs. A", or having Liza leave us in tears after "All the Children in a Row", was as close to greatness as the Broadway stage would ever get for us. And when Peter Larkin's dazzlingly torqued setting of the roller rink lifted off and floated up to the flies in the final moments of the show, our hearts lifted up to the flies along with it.

Others on this thread found this show a disappointment. We found ourselves so disappointed in a Broadway-going public that had no use for a show as special as The Rink.

Updated On: 5/9/13 at 02:54 PM

[forgetmenotnyc]

Posted: 5/9/13 at 3:01pm

It was a great show & Liza & Chita were super in it.

[The Other One]

Posted: 5/10/13 at 10:05am

Owen, that sums up the Chita/Liza combination in THE RINK perfectly.

[fashionguru_23]

Posted: 5/11/13 at 4:33pm

Jon, are those revisions in the licensed script?