Janney seriously kicks butt in it. She makes the role her own, sings in a great character belt, and is totally at ease in the staging. The audience adores her. Hilty is closer to Dolly's take (but the role was written for Dolly, and Dolly wrote these songs, so it's almost unavoidable). And Hilty is adorable doing her impression, too, so the audience also eats her up. Block's role is not that well-defined, and has the hardest arc (particularly since they want her to deliver a DEFYING GRAVITY type belt anthem power ballad in Act Two, so her mousy character has to really evolve quickly), but she is still quite good. The night i saw it, they had set problems, during which two grips snuck out to push a couch downstage to clear the center trap for the next entrance. Block was doing the toke scene, and adlibbed "i feel like we're moving. Girls, are we moving?" which gave Hilty a Harvey Korman/Tim Conway type moment of barely suppressed laughter. It stopped the show, so i'll love Block for that and her Liza in BOY FROM OZ forever.
Will: They don't give out awards for helping people be gay... unless you count the Tonys.
"I guarantee that we'll have tough
times. I guarantee that at some point
one or both of us will want to get out.
But I also guarantee that if I don't
ask you to be mine, I'll regret it for
the rest of my life..."
)
