NEARLY HOSPITALIZED AFTER SEEING "MARTIN SHORT'S FAME BECOMES ME"- Page 2

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 7/7/06 at 11:33pm

and from what I've seen, she's quite happily married.
To a man.


Ah, the old "She CAN'T be queer, she's MARRIED, for crying out loud!" excuse.

Updated On: 7/7/06 at 11:33 PM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 7/7/06 at 11:34pm

Uh-huhhhhhhhhhh.

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 7/7/06 at 11:35pm

Relax, Louella.

ETA: and Hedda.

Updated On: 7/7/06 at 11:35 PM

[WickedGeek28]

Posted: 7/7/06 at 11:37pm

I thought this was going to be a bad review.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 7/7/06 at 11:37pm

Whenever she decides to come out I am sure you'll be there for her in every way you can. Except the one way you'd most want. Just like all the others before her.

[Phantom2]

Posted: 7/7/06 at 11:37pm

Does anyone care about my buns picture?

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 7/7/06 at 11:38pm

Actually, I believe AbbaRabbit has the BWW market cornered on buns pictures.

[JohnBoy2]

Posted: 7/7/06 at 11:40pm

That review borders on parody, as done on SCTV!

[C is for Company]

Posted: 7/7/06 at 11:49pm

This thread needs some WhoreOnHeels

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 7/7/06 at 11:53pm

I'd like to hear Edith Prickley's review.

(In fact, take away Edith's funny bits and we have a pretty clear vision of Our Rath in her dotage.)

[HamletWasBipolar]

Posted: 7/8/06 at 12:50am

Paging Mr.Robbins, Mr Jacky Robbins, Jr.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 7/8/06 at 12:55am

"Gimme a C, gimme a bouncy, bouncy C...."

[Tag]

Posted: 7/8/06 at 2:00am

I hope that review is a parody because the show is the worst thing I have ever seen at the theatre (well not really but close).

[Marc Shaiman]

Posted: 7/8/06 at 2:14am

Jeez, you guys sure can get dramatic!

Yes, I know the guy who wrote this review. He was gushing after our matinee on Thursday (which was attended by the casts of MOVIN OUT and WICKED, of which he is one). I said, well, do us a favor, please, write a "review" online, cause a few people who didn't love it have written in (mostly over on ATC). It would be nice for the opposing side to go on record!

He certainly took the "review" part seriously!! He's an online virgin and took me at my word and wrote it like an actual review! But come on, should someone who LOVED a show not write into a website for theatre lovers?

Cause his opinion is as sincere as those who have the opposite opinion. Please don't be so pessimistic as to not enjoy when someone loves something. We, the cast, were bowled over by his and his cast mate’s reaction.

In fact, all four performances so far here in Chicago have gone wonderfully, each better than the last. We made a lot of changes last week, and they are settling in nicely. And more changes to come before we hit NY. We are very excited.

So, anyway, that's the story. Let's hope our Chicago reviews match the reaction at tonight's opening (knock wood, kenna hura, poo poo poo).

Marc

[bjivie2]

Posted: 7/8/06 at 2:18am

My, we're up pretty late.

Break a leg, Marc!

[BSoBW2]

Posted: 7/8/06 at 2:20am

What is so bad about this show?

I mean, I have heard lots of bad things about it - but I am sort of interested in seeing Martin Short onstage.

I mean, hell, it IS Martin Short! It's not like he's costumed in some Ford type car.

And Jeez! Rath and Namo bring so much sexual tension into a thread! Who'lda thunk it?
Updated On: 7/8/06 at 02:20 AM

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 7/8/06 at 2:28am

We made a lot of changes last week, and they are settling in nicely. And more changes to come before we hit NY.

Please tell me Karen Ziemba (or "KaZi", as her close friends call her) is still in the show.

Updated On: 7/8/06 at 02:28 AM

[muscle23ftl]

Posted: 7/8/06 at 2:41am

I saw Mr. Short in The Producers along with Jason Alexander in LA, they were both absolutely brilliant. But this show doesn't appeal to me too much, is it a one man show? or it has an ensemble?

[jimnysf]

Posted: 7/8/06 at 3:25am

I saw it in San Francisco and I thought there was a lot of funny stuff there. I enjoyed it especially after the last two pre-Broadway shows we had here in SF which were bad: "The Mambo Kings" and the worst ever, "Lestat".

[Charlayne Vivika]

Posted: 7/8/06 at 4:55am

Is Martin Short really all that short? I mean, couldn't he have picked a better stage name? Obviously Charlayne Vivika isn't my real name, and if I'd stuck with the one I was born with, I'd never booked so many shows!

[NathanLaneStalker]

Posted: 7/8/06 at 10:55am

I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[SMiller]

Posted: 7/8/06 at 11:42am

Karen Ziemba is starring in Curtain in Los Angeles with David Hyde Pierce and Debra Monk. I have tickets to see this and am very excited.

SMiller

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 7/8/06 at 12:11pm

Wow! That production is VERY lavender.

[Mr. Tuttle]

Posted: 7/8/06 at 12:23pm

Gee Whiz. Can't we all just get along here? I am so sick of people bashing other people. This isn't a message board people! It's a theater board people. It's for people who want to talk to other people. Not bash other people. because people who need people are...

[Tag]

Posted: 7/8/06 at 12:58pm

This is a review from the Toronto leg of the tryout by a critic from Short's hometown. It is exactly how I felt about the show.

Martin Falls Short:
Star has his moments in breakneck but erratic show
By Gary Smith
The Hamilton Spectator


Fame may well become Martin Short, as the title of his new Broadway bound pastiche of a musical suggests. Trouble is though, it doesn't do it all that well in a troubled evening that is hardly cause for celebration.

A hodge-podge of an entertainment, predicated on the bizarre notion Short is actually telling his life story, turns into a bastardized version of fact after the comedian discovers part way through a sometimes funny, sometimes rocky evening.

Short's "discovery" that an upright life, with the same wife for 25 years, three decent kids and no time boozed-up or drugged-out in rehab is boring to audiences looking for real dirt is perhaps the one real moment of insight in a revue style short predicated on its own brand of excess.

When Short launches into his fabricated version of how things might have been, if he wasn't this nice kid from Hamilton, who just happened to become a star things don't always stay on track.

Truth is, the last decade hasn't been all that kind to the boy from Westdale who seems to have lost his artistic way. After bigtime successes on Broadway in The Goodbye Girl and Little Me -- not to mention television's SCTV, Short came a cropper with several truly terrible films.

Joking or not, Short says on stage these nights with Fame Becomes Me because he needs the work. True or not, he's certainly working himself into a frenzy trying to keep the show he has partly created from collapsing into a frenetic nightmare of sometimes coarse, sometimes funny jokes.

Whatever you think of Short -- and I have to confess I'm not a big fan of his overly frantic sort of comedy -- he works awfully hard here to not only be ingratiating, but also lovable and funny. And not always in that order either.

As it stands, Martin Short:Fame Becomes Me has its moments. A series of sketches and specially written songs, it moves at an incredible pace. Now, whether this breakneck energy, coupled with some comic highlights, is sufficient to allow this hybrid to run on Broadway is anyone's guess.

At present, this so-so evening looks like it would fly in some glitzy Vegas show room, cut to about an hour of its best material.

And speaking of flying, Short rises over the Canon Theatre stage on wires like some aging Peter Pan several times during the night. In many ways the Pan persona defines what's appealing about his stage persona.

Short is like a naughty boy run amok, making jokes at everyone's expense, including some brilliant artists like Judy Garland, Katherine Hepburn, Liza Minelli and Elton John. By now, yuks about drugs and alcohol are really pretty passe. Perhaps better is the comic treatment Short's talented cast gives to personalities like Celine Dion, Joan Rivers and Ellen DeGeneres.

There are tasteless jokes too based on ethnic and sexual stereotypes that admittedly get big laughs, but are they appropriate? It's true the audience at the Canon opening night at times laughed themselves silly. But then, so did the audience at Stratford's The Glass Menagerie, who found great humour in poor Amanda Wingfield and her daughter Laura's desperate tragedy.

One of the best bits of the night was tall and poised Ben Mulroney, plucked from the audience to do the show's nightly ad lib routine, a TV style conversation with Short character Jiminy Glick.

Short's supporting cast, a quartet of talented singers, dancers and actors contribute a great deal to keeping the show on target.

So does composer-lyricist Marc Shaiman, who not only wrote the musical material here, but also the hits for Broadway's Hairspray.

Carpathia Jenkins, a big, bluesy singer brings the house down with her Stop The Show number, stealing some of Short's thunder. To his credit he genuinely seems to admire her talent, even stopping to applaud her sensational turn.

Scott Pask's sets are so-so, a tad cheesy really for a production on its way to Broadway.

Scott Wittman's direction cleaves to the play-it-fast-and furious kind of thing. Maybe that's best, though, given the comic material here co-written by Short and buddy Daniel Goldfarb. It's long on cliche and short on invention.

One of Short's most appealing moments comes at the close of the evening. Stepping downstage to sing Glass Half Full, a quiet song that reveals more about him than anything else we've seen all evening, he toasts his audience and blows a kiss to his "hometown Toronto" crowd.

Gee Marty, and all the time we thought you were from Hamilton.

Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me is at Toronto's Canon Theatre, 244 Victoria St. through July 2. Call 1-800-771-3933.