Message Board Celebrity Of The Day (Part I) - papalovesmambo — Page 115

Or Mary Queen of Snatches!

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Updated On: 2/2/06 at 01:54 PM

I think Balliwick is producing, but I'm not sure the venue yet. I'll let you know when I get more details.

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Is there a show on Broadway (or off) that you missed that you wished you could have seen?

I do regret missing the original production of FOLLIES, even though I could barely walk when it happened (I was SO pissed when I found out that my parents saw it but left me with a babysitter)

Others that come to mind (there are tons of others):

Richard Burbage, HAMLET
John Barrymore, HAMLET
Olivier, Gielgud and Evans in ROMEO & JULIET
Gielgud, HAMLET
Paul Robeson, Uta Hagen and Jose Ferrer, OTHELLO
Laurette Taylor, THE GLASS MENAGERIE
First performance of CRADLE WILL ROCK
Orson Welles and John Housman's "voodoo" MACBETH
Helen Hayes, VICTORIA REGINA
Noel Coward and Gertrude Lawrence, DESIGN FOR LIVING & PRIVATE LIVES
Tallulah Bankhead, THE LITTLE FOXES
Tallulah Bankhead, STREETCAR
A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE OBC
Kim Stanley, BUS STOP
Ethel Merman, GIRL CRAZY
Ethel Merman, GYPSY
WEST SIDE STORY OBC
Gwen Verdon, Every show that she was ever in
Vanessa Redgrave, AS YOU LIKE IT (UK -- her Rosalind was considered definitive for a generation)
Vanessa Redgrave, THE LADY FROM THE SEA
Vanessa Redgrave, THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE
Zoe Caldwell, THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE
PROMISES PROMISES OBC (just for Bennett's staging)
COCO (Bennett's staging)
Judi Dench, CABARET (UK)
James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander, THE GREAT WHITE HOPE
COMPANY OBC
EQUUS OBC
CHICAGO (OBC and Chita with Liza)
NIGHT MOTHER OBC
Every show The Ridiculous Theatre Company ever did
Every show Ethyl Eichelberger ever did

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Updated On: 2/2/06 at 02:27 PM

Sue - is the Bailwick now on Belmont by the Theatre Buildging? I do need to see something outside of the Loop now and then.

Margo - you are younger than Sondheim?

Bailiwick Arts Center is 1229 W. Belmont

And Sondheim is like twice my age, thank you very much! :P

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A toast to Margo, MBCotD! Congrats!

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Congratulations, Margo.

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"What is the worst theatrical event you have ever witnessed?"


Gosh there are a lot. I've seen bad acting, bad writing, bad direction with idiotic "concepts" .... The first thing that popped into my head was Ivo von Hove's production of A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE NYTW from several years ago. The critics fawned all over it, but I thought it was the most pretentious piece of crap I had seen in years. He so butchered that play with his outrageous "concepts" that this intense and lyrical masterpiece was met by unintentional laughter periodically (from a rather sophisticated audience). Here's a short essay I wrote on von Hove a while back:


"There is no theatre artist on the planet I detest more than director Ivo van Hove. Pretentious with a capital P, pedantic, and an artistic fraud that for some reason has seduced certain critics into thinking his work is somehow important. His "Streetcar Named Desire" at NYTW a few seasons ago (also starring the otherwise fine Elizabeth Marvel) was a laughably wrong-headed deconstruction that dishonored the Williams masterpiece. The production was dubbed by me and many others "A Bathtub Named Desire" because the only set piece on the otherwise bare stage was a bathtub filled with water upstage. At one point or another during the play, each of the characters plunged head first into it (some symbolic folderol about "purity" or some other such nonsense).

Blanche's preference for softer lighting and chinese lampshades covering the bare bulbs (she wants fantasy, not reality etc ...) was symbolized by these "boxes of light" projected onto the stage. Blanche always remained in shadow while the other characters walked freely into and out of the light. That was fine until a scene where Blanche is held in the light by Stanley. Marvel began to scream uncontrollably, then got on all fours and pretended to be a giant spider and hissed at the audience. She then scampered upstage and plunged into the bathtub named desire.

During the dinner table scene where Blanche and Stella poke fun at Stanley to the point where he erupts in anger and clears all he dishes off of the table, since there was no table and and no dishes on stage, van Hove came up with another one of his directorial masterstrokes. At the climactic moment, Blanche and Stella stood on stage and froze while Stanley exited stage right. He returned a moment later carrying a stack of dishes and then robotically broke them one by one by throwing them to the floor. Blanche and Stella remained frozen and unresponsive. When Stanley was out of dishes, he once again exited and returned with another stack. He broke them all in the same manner and the women stayed frozen. Then he did it again. Then they carried on with the rest of the scene which culminated with Stella plunging face first into the bathtub.

Oh god, there's so much more, but you get the idea. I might have been able to somehow forgive this crackpot production, if he'd at least respected Williams poetry and let the actors breathe life into some of those classic lines and monologues, but they were all either de-emphasized, drowned out with sound effects or he had the actors deliver them robotically and totally without emotion.

He's like a bad MFA directing student trying to show off what he learned in avant garde class. His experiments do a disservice to the playwright and the text and do nothing to illuminate a play's subtextual issues (I don't think he likes words) -- he's strange just to be strange and doesn't have a clue about what he's doing. He frankly should spend some time with, say, Elizabeth LeCompte and the Wooster Group and learn what good deconstruction looks like. LeCompte has done several brilliant re-interpretations of works by O'Neill (The Emperor Jones, The Hairy Ape, Long Days Journey), Chekhov (The Three Sisters), and other classic writers, and while she may use multi-media effects, highly stylized performances, and make radical textual cuts, her experiments always seem to serve the play and cut to the core of the a work's meaning and ideas, and in some cases make a work that would seem dated in a standard production, truly speak to a contemporary audience. By contrast, van Hove only seems to want to serve van Hove and in doing so, does a disservice to the works he directs."

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Margo, I love this:

(I don't think he likes words)

"Did you have one particular influence to guide you towards the theatre?"

Just my parents who took me to plays religiously from the age of 4 and thankfully had very good taste. Incidentally, my mother's first show was South Pacific with Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza.

"What is your favorite meal?"

Not sure. Probably something involving seafood.

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Congratulations Margo! You add so much to this website and your posts and reviews are always the ones that I read first and appreciate the most. Your knowledge of Broadway is so extensive, you never cease to amaze, entertain, or educate me! .

Thanks!

And interestingly, around the country we see regional theatres really focussing on new work and new voices - and they're still trying to make a buck!

Ever want to perform or direct? When you sit in a theatre, do you think, "Oh, I'd do it THAT way."?

Please, you're not THAT old!