Actors Breaking Character- Page 2

[Fantod]

Posted: 10/8/14 at 3:25pm

It is really irritating that somebody like Menzel is able to get away with this just because she is a "star". Actors have an obligation to give a performance 8 times a week, and in no way should they be allowed to just break character because they are tired.

[Wilmingtom]

Posted: 10/8/14 at 3:27pm

Hideous, juvenile behavior but it does happen, like getting the giggles at a funeral. That doesn't mean it should be celebrated. Unprofessional and unacceptable.

[Pootie2]

Posted: 10/8/14 at 3:40pm

These sorts of things, I chalk it up to "You had to be there..." I don't think it's necessary to be absolutist about breaks (it happens), but depends on the situation.

OP probably didn't mean for this to turn into another "Bash Menzel" thread, but I get the feeling that there's just a different sort of audience going to IF/THEN than a "traditional" theater-goer (like more tourists or something) and thus with different expectations--for better or worse. And with a younger fan base, more tech-savvy than most other Broadway audiences I imagine, these sorts of things are going to get out there more often. I personally doubt IF/THEN has that much higher a standard deviation of outtakes than other shows, rather as a matter of exposure, but eh. If the audience present at the time reacted well enough and the internats isn't full of complaints from people who were actually there, then no harm done.

A couple other older threads for OP:
https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.php?thread=914209
https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.php?thread=940903

[Jayar2]

Posted: 10/8/14 at 4:01pm

Idina broke when I saw If/Then also. She forgot to bring a cell phone on stage when she was to take a call. She announced that she did not have a phone, and waited until someone threw her one. She then hammed it up, and then redid that section of the show. I was one of the few people in the audience who seem less than impressed.

[dreaming]

Posted: 10/8/14 at 4:04pm

A very famous one I read about was during the CA run of Wicked (I think it was the Curran in SF). Someone's cell phone went off during the scene with the lion cub and Norbert Leo Butz, who played Fiyero, said "I think people with cell phones should be kept in cages".

[Keiichi2]

Posted: 10/8/14 at 4:12pm

A few years ago, during the production of Cyrano de Bergerac with Kevin Kline, he was performing a scene with another actor. I believe in the scene, the characters were supposed to be in an empty theater. As they were doing their dialogue, an old man in the audience yelled out "Speak up!" to the actors. Kline acted shocked, looked around the set, and said "There must be a ghost in this theater!"

At the end of the show, after the actors took their bows, Kline stepped forward to thank the audience for being wonderful, "with one exception".

[Gothampc]

Posted: 10/8/14 at 4:16pm

I think anything that breaks the "magic" in the theater shouldn't be tolerated. There is something very special about live theater and it shouldn't become a free for all.

Actors should not be venting on audience members. They seem to forget that people are paying their salaries. And people should go into the theater with a sense of respect for what is going on.

I think that Idina's behavior only encourages audience members to act out inappropriately. It's too bad that audience members can't file a complaint with Actor's Equity.

Updated On: 10/8/14 at 04:16 PM

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 10/8/14 at 4:20pm

I've only seen an actor break character once in such a prominent fashion, and it was due to a pair of related technical problems (on the Les Miz tour, 13 years ago). It was embarrassing for the actor and all/most of the audience felt for him. He got a huge ovation. I still wince about it, but I think he did the best he could.

[ThorouglyModern2]

Posted: 10/8/14 at 4:28pm

Can't believe so many people are getting their panties in a wad....ya'll sure must be fun to be around!

[Gothampc]

Posted: 10/8/14 at 4:34pm

If/Then tickets can go as high as $217 per seat. When a person is paying those prices, they don't want to see Idina screwing around.

[Sutton Ross]

Posted: 10/8/14 at 5:00pm

^ Speak only for yourself, obviously a lot of people don't mind.


When I saw Les Mis last month, Ramin burst out laughing when Keala attempted to flirt with him, lifting up her skirt, giving him sexy eyes. It was so funny, the audience loved it, and he wasn't able to stop smiling until the next scene. His character is serious for three hours straight, so it was pretty great to see him smile.


Updated On: 10/8/14 at 05:00 PM

[dramamama611]

Posted: 10/8/14 at 5:10pm

Nobody has anything in a wad. Opinions aren't panties.

[MichelleCraig]

Posted: 10/8/14 at 5:24pm

When I saw Pearl Bailey in HELLO, DOLLY! at the Shubert Theater in Boston...I was very young...during the cakewalk dance in the title number, Pearl bent down every time she danced past the conductor and requested, "Slow it down, honey...slow it down." It worked.

[SweetLips]

Posted: 10/8/14 at 5:28pm

'I was there when..' sort of thing-it's almost like that moment is more important than the whole. If a ballerina slips--what do you talk about-that 5 seconds or the other brilliant 95mins.?
The worst is the 'pretend' losing it-that's just insulting.
Sure-the actors are real people, just like their audience and unexpected things happen to throw them off balance or out of the moment but try to recover or mask the problem-not turn it into a 3 ring circus.

[JBroadway]

Posted: 10/8/14 at 5:55pm

I think there are definitely moments when actors breaking character are SOMEWHAT appropriate, depending on the show, and the degree to which it is done. The Norbert Leo Butz example cited above doesn't seem all that bad to me, because he stayed relatively in the scene, and didn't entirely break character, but rather broke the 4th wall. I wasn't there, but I might guess that there was applause and then they kept going. What Idina seems to be doing a lot is just completely stopping the show dead in its tracks when she could probably keep in the scene if she tried.

Also, to those who are saying that we hear about Idina breaking character more because her audiences are made up of young, tech-savvy people: at least from my perspective, that doesn't account for the number of times I've heard/read about Idina breaking in If/Then. There are plenty of shows that draw in active social-media users, and I personally have never heard this many accounts about actor breaking this often.

[gangtey]

Posted: 10/8/14 at 5:56pm

I saw Cabaret last week. I was impressed and appreciative that Alan Cumming, even after so many performances, was giving it everything he had. I would not find it charming if a star were to break character to tell the audience how weary they are from toiling in the salt mines of Broadway.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 10/8/14 at 6:03pm

What about classic cases like Zero Mostel? As the anecdotes go, him announcing baseball scores, etc, during FORUM kinda worked (though I could argue that it gets in the way of the classic element of the comedy to make modern references,) but when he started doing it in Fiddler, it was a big problem...

[theatregeek6]

Posted: 10/8/14 at 6:20pm

Bless me father for I have sinned. I am about to agree with After Eight


Do the show as written. If you screw up a quick comedy moment is ok but if you can't get it together you are not 'the biggest star on Broadway'

[TFMH18]

Posted: 10/8/14 at 9:37pm

I've seen If/Then quite a few times and I've only seen Menzel break once, though it wasn't really her fault. She was at the end of "Learn to Live Without," standing center stage. Suddenly, audio from the plane scene which follows started playing over the orchestra. Idina got understandably spooked, thinking it was a fire alarm or something and stopped the song. It was very brief and she apologized to the audience after qualifying that she "fell through a hole once so she gets nervous."

It was one of my most favorite moments of theater I've ever experienced. These incidents happen, it's live theater and to blame anyone for such occurrences is pretty silly.

[Sherbear8081]

Posted: 10/8/14 at 9:48pm

I saw If/Then back in July, and it was the seen before What the F**k and Idina was trying to say probability, but it didn't come out quite right. Her and James both start laughing and James says how much have you had to drink and he then takes the wine glass away from her. They regroup and continue with the scene as if it didn't happen. Later in the show LaChanze was in her "classroom" talking to her class about heroes, before the song No More Wasted Time and something dropped/fell backstage and she in response to that she said get in the circle and settle down now or something like that. These mishaps have shown me how important improv is. They knew exactly what to say and made the show really good. I laughed so hard and I really enjoyed the show!

Updated On: 10/9/14 at 09:48 PM

[BobNC]

Posted: 10/8/14 at 9:57pm

I saw Katharine Hepburn when she broke character to scold audience member who put his feet up on the stage. It was in the early 80s, West Side Waltz. During her encore, she silenced the audience and really ripped int the guy calling him a name. The guy had it coming to him, but, I felt sorry for him, at any rate.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 10/8/14 at 11:07pm

What about classic cases like Zero Mostel? As the anecdotes go, him announcing baseball scores, etc, during FORUM kinda worked (though I could argue that it gets in the way of the classic element of the comedy to make modern references,) but when he started doing it in Fiddler, it was a big problem...

Eric, in the Mostel revival of FIDDLER in 1975, we did the last pre-Broadway leg in Miami Beach. I promise you that announcing baseball scores was the least of it! Zero played Tevye as if he were all Three Stooges rolled into one. He literally added almost an hour to the running time.

I was told that only Jerome Robbins could control him and an extended rehearsal period with Robbins was scheduled for after the show closed in Miami and opened on Broadway.

(This is childish on my part, but frankly the experience soured me on the show itself. And I had seen a very good national tour of FIDDLER when I was a teenager.)

So, basically, everything you've heard was true--and then some!

***

BTW, Milton Berle also announced scores and made references to Joe's Crab Shack when he did Pseudolus for us. And, yes, somehow it worked without unraveling the tight farce of the book. (It helped that the rest of the cast was excellent!)

Updated On: 10/8/14 at 11:07 PM

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 10/8/14 at 11:10pm

According to William Goldman in THE SEASON, Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme programmed "crack ups" into their performances in GOLDEN RAINBOW. But Goldman goes on to say that by that time, they had given up on playing their parts and were content to play "Steve and Eydie".

[delongpre]

Posted: 10/9/14 at 10:08pm

I've seen If/Then many times and have seen Idina go off twice. Once was pretty big, where she was coming into the subway train and messed up her line. They all laughed, could not regain, and she asked the audience if she could do the scene over. Everyone applauded, nobody complained. She said she had messed the same line up at the matinee. She exited and re-entered and did the scene closer to script.

The other time I saw her go off, Idina choked on the cereal in the scene with James, coughed and coughed and they had to bring her water. James, reading the paper, said "there's a sale at Macy's" while Idina was trying to stop coughing, now laughing, and Idina said the drink was bourbon. They laughed so hard, James kept laughing and Idina said "where were we? we have a show to do."

Both times the audience understood that things like that happen, applauded, laughed, and then we went on with the show. No big deal. In fact, some people see it as special when the show strays from the same old same old. You realize these "stars" are just human after all.

[Trytodefy]

Posted: 10/10/14 at 12:44am

I disagree with most people in this thread. Audiences love when little mishaps happen, it makes that performace special to them. They can say " I was at the performance when..." It shows that these actors are HUMAN and not MACHINES. I love that Idina can play it off and move on, that is why she's a superstar.

Updated On: 10/10/14 at 12:44 AM