Profile for Auggie27

These comments on the role Louise plays in a satisfying Gypsy are spot on. Structurally, second act presents a new obstacle for Rose, and it arrives in an unexpected form: show biz success, not failure. It's the brilliant irony in the tale, Rose's dream of a daughter's achievement is finally met yet she's locked out of participation. Seemingly jettisoned for over investing in her child's ascension. The person who drives Rose to her cathartic ep

Can anyone comment on the Danny Strong book? The show's problems fall into the Candide camp - to use the broadest definition associated with that legend - all score, weakish storytelling to hold an audience. Chess has always suffered from a shortage of relatable stakes, i.e., making Cold War specific character issues feel immediate. Yes, Russia is, if anything, more in the foreground than it has been for two decades. But the defection from communism angle is organic to a

I'm intrigued to read that McDonald has made significant adjustments in her vocal mix. Those of us who aren't singers, but have ears long trained to singing actors making adjustments are curious (I can personally go back to Joan Diener's Aldonza in London when I was a teen, and she sang the role differently than on the OBC album; though I understand hers is not really a comparable). Are the mix changes more toward the operatic side of her range, or has she found more in her chest

Just read Sara Holden's review at Vulture. Wow. 

Single best and most insightful review of Gypsy that I've ever read, and my first Gypsy was London, June 1973, with the Lansbury Rose. The analysis of the artistic disconnect baked into any production - Rose has zero cash to create theatrical magic, yet the vehicle around her has plenty, so the newsboy shtick is framed in heavy B'way accoutrements - is so spot on, it's shocki

Taken in their entirety, the reviews do reflect the board's reservations. I started with Deadline last night, and maybe because it parses the very issues that have driven the debate here, it seemed to be the best overall take on this revival's strengths and vulnerabilities, fully endorsing the production's success. And that last paragraph of the Green take, which brings up an inevitability: any revival of Gypsy conjures memories of all of the others. Every other Rose is u

I saw the original Pippin at the Imperial at 19 and have a soft spot for its mutability; it adapts to directorial vision and theatrical conceit. A charming high school production convinced me. But as a rewatch of Fosse/Verdon also reminded me, it’s trapped with a schematic and episodic book - Fosse knew and minimized it - and depends on actual live magic to take flight. Because it’s cinematic doesn’t mean it will make a good film. Its existen

I can't believe anyone would fret about this or any star not doing stage door protocols in previews. Or hell, any time. The lack of understanding about what it takes to get a behemoth of a show on its feet - and remain there, 8 times a week - is staggering, particularly on a theater board. No one is under obligation to greet the public en route from the dressing room to waiting transportation. Remember what this body and voice punishing process - and sustained discipline in

So far, responses fall into two camps: she's miscast because the vocal demands are out of sync with her gift; and, she needs a month to create a synergy between her legit instrument and her characterization. I recently heard McDonald say that she'd read the script "hundreds of times," i.e., spent the summer in preparation. To abandon her previous idea of Rose as "a monster." It's feasible that by October she was so immersed, so fully co

I much appreciate the highly detailed commentary on where posters determine the McDonald Rose misfires, in conception and earliest execution. They are thoughtful, carefully considered, and in every way analytical. I don't find any disrespectful of the artists or artistry.  A great theatrical treasure McDonald certainly is; but this is a public forum - and I've been here two decades - that welcomes dissenting takes. It's always been a reliable pla

But as for today, this week especially when nerves are so raw, it’s not unreasonable to not want to spend your time and money supporting someone who (seemingly) took a step in helping to harm you or your community.

I fully agree. I don't think anyone serves the fraught, unsettling, and justifiably angering moment by tone policing those who want to take a stand, as consumers and citizens. It isn't just routine partisanship; we didn't elect Mitt Romney

She strikes me as in every possible way wrong for Charity, a woman who's been around the block more than once and has that tricky blend of vulnerability and street smarts that only comes with honest adult survival - i.e., a few more years. Nothing about her feels right, at least not in the next half a decade. 

No one wants another Candide, but isn't she a Cunegonde?  If the voices is a richly rangy as we've been told? I'd like to see her in somet

Booking the Palace for a show without a box office star seems oddly counterintuitive. This belief that Elton John's name ensures pop cultural curiosity is twenty years old; this subject doesn't have the universality of Billy Elliott or the Disney magic of Aida. And as I noted much earlier in questioning the subject, this material arrives with self-parody in its DNA. You can't send up and heighten a character and story that already contain so much exaggeratio

I was at the Wednesday matinee, Scherzinger's first performance since opening night, and she left it all on the stage. The vocals, much discussed here, seemed in the go-for-broke range, so taxing and full it's hard to imagine that she'd have anything left for the evening. Count me among her admirers; the performance is both a new Norma and yet mysteriously the traditional one as well. She has the gravitas of Swanson, to my surprise, and wisely realizes that her Norma's weight

I have to agree again with Queen Alice on this point about the score. I'm a fan of the music, yet feel Lloyd's staging does something masterfully fresh with it; by making the show so score-forward - it's so perfectly balanced at the St. James (there yesterday), the people who usually need the headsets just put them around their necks - the music explodes with the ferocity of a rock concert. It pulls us forward from the outset, the lushness one of the fasci