Mandy Bruno+Les Mis= Awful!

[Lauren_T]

Ok saw les mis a few days ago...How the heck did Mandy Bruno get cast? She is awful!There are so many other girls out there that can sing her into the ground...how do so-so people get cast on Broadway? I see this time and time again...makes you wonder...It is almost like she had her agent call and say...Mandy wants to be in les mis...and they said..ok!. please, I seriously felt like my money was wasted when she came on. So disapointed! Ugh!

[massofmen]

i concur. She is pretty bad. I could understand if they needed ticket sales and or...no thats really it.
I just don't understand how when you have one of the darlings of broadway waiting in the wings to be Eponine (Megan McGinnis) how do you cast this person who cannot sing this role. Seriously..Cannot. And let's not talk about the acting. Cause its dormant.

[wiggum2]

I watch Guiding Light and the girl can't act so I was curious if she could at least sing... I guess not

I'm always curious how certain people get cast when there are so many more talented people out there

[TWSFan4Ever]

I thought she was fine in "Beauty and the Beast" (the Pittsburgh CLO production).

[Amneris]

She is a nice girl if that saves her =D

[massofmen]

my mom is nice, but she can't sing worth a poop. sometimes casting just boggles the mind

[LizzieCurry]

Well, I suppose I can think of a few other (pro) Eponines I've sat through in the past who make me think I can probably bear Mandy...not that that makes it ok.

[theminutepast]

I expected Mandy Bruno would be bad. It makes appreciate seeing Celia so much more (not that I didn't already!).

[theminutepast]

Lizzie, do you plan on going to NYC to see the revival? Just curious.

[LizzieCurry]

Yes.

[jsg03jd]

Decided to catch the matinee today (May 12, 2007) and I have to agree: I saw Keenan-Bolger's understudy and she is far better than Bruno. But maybe she'll grow into the role as more time passes.

[HumATune]

You know, Eponine is one of those parts where the actress can suck and the she’ll still have the audience eating out of her hand. There were people yelling “woo!” after On My Own for Dina Mori****a, who was the weakest of the eight Eponines I’ve seen.

Meanwhile poor Cosette is so underwritten than even an excellent actress in the role can go unnoticed or get written off.

I wish more actresses would play Eponine as a dark crazy character instead the martyr. If I were an actress, I think it would be a lot more fun to give Eponine some kind of borderline personality, because given her life, it’s easy to see why she’s go kind of crazy. What’s the fun in playing her as a meta-symbol for unrequited love? Oh yeah, you get lots of teenage girls kissing your butt at the stage door.

It depresses me that so many Eponiens are mediocre, because I am an Eponine fan. I like Eponine because she is a whiny wretched creature. (I’ve always loved the bad characters over the good; it’s Daffy Duck over Bugs Bunny for me.) Perhaps some of the actresses take the role for granted, because it’s written very sympathetically already. Meanwhile the Cosette actresses work harder to make something of that role because there is so little.

My point? It saddens me to hear (from what I’ve read around the web) that Mandy has taken the teenybopper approach to the role instead of inserting some much needed grit into the street rat.

[LizzieCurry]

I like how Dina's last name gets bleeped out on this board. It's fitting, somehow.

[massofmen]

was it ms. mcginnis?

[p.s.]

I wish more actresses would play Eponine as a dark crazy character instead the martyr. If I were an actress, I think it would be a lot more fun to give Eponine some kind of borderline personality, because given her life, it’s easy to see why she’s go kind of crazy. What’s the fun in playing her as a meta-symbol for unrequited love?


On an earlier thread, Lizzie noted: If Celia is crazy, then she's more like the book Eponine.


I loved Celia's Eponine. She seemed to me to be portraying Eponine as two steps up from Anybodys, Tomboy of West Side Story, rather than a half-step down from Cosette. ( I think Eponine is slightly younger than Cosette -- and remember, she (at least when wrapped in her overcoat) does get mistaken for a boy). Celia was perfect.

Having said that, both Megan and Marissa were excellant as Eponine, though so much different from Celia's. The two times I saw Mandy Bruno [her opening performance and one week later], she seemed to me to be trying to portray Celia, rather than her own Eponine. I don't agree that she has taken a teenybopper approach to the role, but I do agree that she should insert some of her own grit into the role.


p.s. Hail Celia

[wendy kroy]

That is why it is incredible that Judy Kuhn got a TONY nomination for her portayal of Cosette in the OBC because that role is so unwritten. That just shows that the part can be played quite well.

[Jimmcf]

Frances Ruffelle was the original and the best.

[wendy kroy]

I agree. Frances Ruffelle was THE ABSOLUTE best. And Kelli James (her successor) was also brilliant.

[B3TA07]

Who did she play

[LizzieCurry]

Well, if Kelli James replaced Frances Ruffelle...then obviously, she was Valjean.

[chino]

Wow! Good thing I am reading. I was about to see it again because I wanted to see the replacements. Guess not.

Lea can still do it!

[Colle]

Please tell more about Kelli James as Eponine. I have not heard much about how she was like as Eponine.

[allvocal]

I didn't think she was great... I thought everything she did was pretty bad... strangly thou.. I didn't hate ON MY OWN.. random eh?

[ashbash1990]

to reply to HumATune, The roles are written like they are in the book (which I like a lot...), Cosette is shallow, and innocent, and really not the focus of the "miserable" story when she grows up... Eponine, on the other hand, is a Martyr...

[Rathnait62]

Kelli James played Eponine after Frances and was wonderful.