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

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 2/2/06 at 1:54pm

Or Mary Queen of Snatches!

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

[brdlwyr]

Posted: 2/2/06 at 1:57pm

Margo - I will definately check out the Angels here - where is it being staged?

*snickers at snatches*

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 2/2/06 at 2:04pm

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

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 2/2/06 at 2:25pm

I think Balliwick is producing

Now there is a frightening thought. A friend of mine was asked to audition for this but being Equity he had to turn it down. I don't remember where he said it was going to be done. Bailiwick doesn't usually produce things outside of it's own space.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 2/2/06 at 2:27pm

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

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

[Garland Grrrl]

Posted: 2/2/06 at 2:33pm

Margo your remembrance of your first Broadway show reminded me of the child that sat behind me at SOUVENIR. He was about six years old and so lively and chatty before the show and his granny kept "shhh"ing him; I dreaded what was to come once the curtain went up. That child sat there rapt, for two whole acts, completely silent save for the occasions when he laughed out loud at the outrageous singing. I complimented his granny at the act break (a gracious Caribbean lady in sensible shoes) and she said she takes him to a show of some kind every week and that his favorite shows involve music but he didn't like WICKED. I expect to be reading his reviews here in a few years.

[brdlwyr]

Posted: 2/2/06 at 2:37pm

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?

[Broadwayboobs]

Posted: 2/2/06 at 2:40pm

WOW Margo..out of that whole list the only one I got to see was 'Night Mother...that started my love affair with Kathy Bates.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 2/2/06 at 2:45pm

Bailiwick Arts Center is 1229 W. Belmont

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

[wickedrentq]

Posted: 2/2/06 at 3:20pm

Okay here's one I wonder about...I'm not sure if I'm wording it correctly or how to define, but what are some of your favorite...commercial shows? Not even necessarily just ones for profit on Bway(and so few of those made your best of list anyway), but...ones that you would say have been extremely financially successful?

[CostumeMistress]

Posted: 2/2/06 at 3:21pm

A toast to Margo, MBCotD! Congrats!

[NYadgal]

Posted: 2/2/06 at 3:32pm

Margo, thanks for the thrilling answers to all the questions! Thought provoking and deeply interesting.

[Kringas]

Posted: 2/2/06 at 3:38pm

Congratulations, Margo.

[melissa errico fan]

Posted: 2/2/06 at 3:39pm

Congrats, Margo! One of my favorite posters, and a real wealth of knowledge.

What is the worst theatrical event you have ever witnessed?

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 2/2/06 at 4:11pm

"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."

[kissmycookie]

Posted: 2/2/06 at 4:18pm

I have to deviate and ask, Margo... What is your favorite meal?

[brdlwyr]

Posted: 2/2/06 at 4:20pm

Margo, I love this:

(I don't think he likes words)

[gettinhep]

Posted: 2/2/06 at 4:26pm

Margo, congratulations on this day.

I had a dear, eccentric great aunt who was most kind to me. She took me to so many shows, and an eclectic range of events, when I was a small girl. It had a great bearing on my current tastes.

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

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 2/2/06 at 4:55pm

"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.

[DG]

Posted: 2/2/06 at 4:59pm

So, Margo - you REALLY couldn't think of just ONE positive trend in American theatre?

And I'm going to try and forgive you for not including Ian McKellen in your list of favorite performers

[Dirty Rotten Scoundrel]

Posted: 2/2/06 at 5:04pm

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! .

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 2/2/06 at 5:51pm

Positive trend.......

Well, the not-for-profit theatre seems to be healthier now than ever, expanding programming, acquiring Broadway houses and still staying true to their mission goals of nurturing up-and-coming playwrights and composers and developing new audiences. What with runaway costs and an ever-shrinking serious theatre audience, we need the not-for-profits to increase in prominence now more than ever -- they're the hope for the future of the American theatre.

[DG]

Posted: 2/2/06 at 5:54pm

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."?

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 2/2/06 at 6:10pm

Without going into specifics, I've worked as a director and dramaturg many times (and am currently doing rewrites on a friend's rock musical). I also was a professional singer for many years and performed gigs all over this city and others (jazz, blues, r&b, rock etc.....) and have done commercial work. But that's ancient history .......

[DG]

Posted: 2/2/06 at 6:11pm

Please, you're not THAT old!