WSS 'Gang' Members
WSS 'Gang' Members
#1WSS 'Gang' Members
Posted: 6/8/09 at 8:47am
Arthur Laurents:
"The musical theatre and cultural conventions of 1957 made it next to impossible for the characters to have authenticity. Every member of both gangs was always a potential killer even then. Now they actually will be."
How did he actually attempt to do this? And he failed right?
"You can't overrate Bernadette Peters. She is such a genius. There's a moment in "Too Many Mornings" and Bernadette doing 'I wore green the last time' - It's a voice that is just already given up - it is so sorrowful. Tragic. You can see from that moment the show is going to be headed into such dark territory and it hinges on this tiny throwaway moment of the voice." - Ben Brantley (2022)
"Bernadette's whole, stunning performance [as Rose in Gypsy] galvanized the actors capable of letting loose with her. Bernadette's Rose did take its rightful place, but too late, and unseen by too many who should have seen it" Arthur Laurents (2009)
"Sondheim's own favorite star performances? [Bernadette] Peters in ''Sunday in the Park,'' Lansbury in ''Sweeney Todd'' and ''obviously, Ethel was thrilling in 'Gypsy.'' Nytimes, 2000
Oldschool
Stand-by Joined: 3/3/09
#2re: WSS 'Gang' Members
Posted: 6/8/09 at 10:11am
He didn't and that's the problem. His avenue for creating tension was using Spanish. The problem was that it's a dance heavy show and they got great dancers, but not great actors. One audience member in DC's pre-broadway run said, "They look like a bunch of gay computer geeks." Peter Marks, the theatre reviewer for the Washington Post, said in his review that his date for the evening during the intermission said that she could take the gangs. I don't want anyone to think that I'm coming down on gay performers, which I am decidedly not. Rather that in this instance, they weren't good enough actors. In one scene in Doc's, one of the Jets acted like he was impersonating Doogie Howser. Even in the movie, the gangs conveyed more menace and that didn't have any Spanish.
The other problem that Laurent's didn't address was the weakness in the book in that the Sharks don't have any lines.
#2re: WSS 'Gang' Members
Posted: 6/8/09 at 10:35am
>>one of the Jets acted like he was impersonating Doogie Howser. <<
Blame youtube and Dr Horrible for this one! And the Tony's for having NPH as the host as a refresher course.
I once heard someone describe her (Ruthie Henshall) singing as sounding as though she's trying to swallow a whole meatball slightly larger than her windpipe. (The same person compared Michael Ball's singing to sounding as though he's sitting on a washing machine on spin cycle and Colm Wilkinson's to a man with a paralyzed lip trying to eat cottage cheese.) --- Schmerg_The_Impaler
