Hello everyone! I can't begin to tell you all how happy I was to be able to meet so many of you over the last two weekends. I've said it before - the quality of his fans is a direct reflection of the quality of the man. And we all know he's the best!
I actually saw the show on Saturday night as well as Sunday afternoon. My friend (Miss P) was a successful bidder on one of the items in Greg's dr and she asked me to pick it up for her on Saturday. I was at the stage door a little before 7:30 and I saw Greg across the street at D&D getting his coffee. It was POURING down rain at that point and he ran across and invited me upstairs to get out of the rain. This was wonderful because it gave me 10 or 15 minutes to have a nice 'last chat' with him.
I couldn't believe how much smaller that little dressing room looked! He said it surprised him too. Once the 'dressing' came down (drapes and such) it really turned into a walk in closet. (Actually I have a couple of walk in closets in my apartment that are bigger!). There was still lots of stuff lying around and it was obvious that it was going to take some more time to get him fully packed out.
We talked about the new cast and he asked me about my thoughts on the subject. I won't relate them all here, I'll just say that he said that the Andre we all know now will be completely gone and a whole new Andre will be taking his place. He said "you won't even know him". I told him that I won't know him because I won't see him. I want to remember the one who's there now.
I went to take my leave and told him that I just wasn't able to say goodbye - so I wouldn't. He asked me then if this was going to be the last time he saw me and I assured him that he was going to see far too much of me the next day. (Since I was going to be sitting in the first row!). I just wasn't going to be able to see him at the stage door. I'm just way too emotional to do that to him or myself.
The show Saturday night was interesting and disappointing. There was ZERO energy in the house from a nearly-dead audience. Sadly there was almost nothing coming from the stage either. The major exceptions to this were Greg and Lucie. I know it's easy to say that on this thread, but it was absolutely true. (They actually got a bigger applause at the curtain call than any of the leads). I felt that both of the new guys showed the ability to pull of the roles, but weren't close to getting there yet. Brian D'Arcy James turned in the stronger performance of the two, but it was still pretty weak. What I did see from him was an attempt to mimic a lot of the moves we've become used to seeing Norbert do. Occasionally he would let loose with one or two of his own and then he shone. Keith Carradine spent FAR too much time in staring at the audience. During conversations with other characters, he would look directly at the audience. It was very off-putting and very artificial.
Now for the incredibly good news...... They must have stayed there and worked all night on Saturday. The performance on Sunday was WORLD'S better than Saturday - from both of the guys. This wasn't just ad-libbing, but seemed to be actual rehearsed changes that worked better for both guys and helped them both to relax in their roles. Brian inserted more of his own wackiness in his scenes and Keith looked much more relaxed and comfortable on stage. He's still talking to the audience a little too much, but there was a lot of improvement there as well.
I'll add one other VERY pro Keith comment - I liked his version of "When Love Walks In" better than either of the last two guys. Like them, he is not the world's greatest singer, but his version was really lovely and seemed more heartfelt and sincere.
I'm going to run my pics by Barb and Greg first and if they have no problems, I'll post a link here.
More later....
Mamie
(ps - thank you Dre and Amanda!)
(pps - During the curtain call on Saturday night, when the whole cast is lined up on the stage, Greg and Lucie turned to each other and started dancing together. I will kick myself forever that I didn't have a camera. It was wonderful!)
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mamie4 5/14/03
Updated On: 7/24/06 at 09:48 AM
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