I saw her in The Best Little Whorehouse Tour a few years ago. Although I was glad I got to see someone many consider a legend, that is the only positive thing I could say about it.
She didn't fit in onstage. She was outsung by the other performers and seemed to just be reading her lines without really playing the character for us.
I saw her in that tour, too. It was right after she'd hurt her wrist, so I assume she was whacked on on painkillers, at least that's the only explanation that I can come up with for what was truly an... unusual performance. She kept stumbling over her lyrics and would giggle and look to the other performers to cue her. But they didn't.
^Given her many years in nightclubs and Vegas, perhaps it's safe to assume that her disappointing performance in Whorehouse could be best explained by injury/recovery.
The real question is why she didn't come to Broadway years ago.
That's what I figured. I knew she wasn't a stranger to the stage, but this perforamnce was really out there. I guess she's a "show must go on" kind of gal.
Ann-Marget in a family show based on a children's book. Is she the new Freckleface Strawberry?
Please give Ann some meat and not some family show. She deserves something she can sink her teeth into.
"The sexual energy between the mother and son really concerns me!"-random woman behind me at Next to Normal
"I want to meet him after and bang him!"-random woman who exposed her breasts at Rock of Ages, referring to James Carpinello
I've always been an Ann-Margret fan and have been dying to see her in a really terrific role on stage. She really must have been whacked out on something during her Whorehouse tour, cause I've seen some clips and she's totally out of it.
She's a terrific actress and used to have a great voice (don't know if it's gone now or what.) I just can't think of any roles for women her age that she could play anymore. She'd have made a great Desiree in Night Music years ago and could very well still play some of the gals in Follies (Hattie, Carlotta, Stella, etc.) Who knows?
I also saw the Whorehouse tour...and I really regret that. Like the others have said, it was not pretty, but I saw it well after she had had the injury and she should have been over it. There's a reason it didn't come into New York like they'd planned.
Her voice was almost gone then, too...so I can only imagine what shape it's in now.
Coach Bob knew it all along: you've got to get obsessed and stay obsessed. You have to keep passing the open windows. (John Irving, The Hotel New Hampshire)
I have been a fan of Ann Margret for years. My first time seeing her live was in a show during the early eighties, where to my suprise her setlist included her "disco' hits. My seat was not good, but it didn't matter. Years later, I also saw The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Maybe before her wrist injury.. maybe not. She looked and sounded great to me. After the show, I had the chance to meet her later at a private party. Sure she was older and wider. But who cared. Here in front of me was "Miss Kitten With A Whip" herself. I was in awe of her. For the fans, check out her disco hit, "What I Do To Men"