A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC'S reopening tonight...(review updates here) — Page 6

And as I mentioned earlier -- Lansbury had similar problems her first week or so in the role. These ladies get a 'free pass' because they have earned it. Lansbury obviously worked out whatever issues she had with the material and I have no doubt Stritch will too.

At any rate - I'm seeing it tonight and again in about three weeks --- I can't wait to see how these ladies both grow and evolve into these roles.

Updated On: 7/14/10 at 09:15 AM

Did Bernadette and Elaine come out the stage door?

So, I think we have all come to the conclusion that Elaine will get better with time. Thanks.

And as I mentioned earlier -- Lansbury had similar problems her first week or so in the role. These ladies get a 'free pass' because they have earned it. Lansbury obviously worked out whatever issues she had with the material and I have no doubt Stritch will too.

As ljay said, the difference is that Lansbury covered it a lot better than Stritch did. When Stritch forgot a line, she started snapping her fingers and repeating the word "and" until she remembered the line. Lansbury would make things up as she went along.

And I'm apparently the only one who still dislikes Erin Davie as Charlotte. It boggles my mind that this role won a Tony in the original production (and from what I've read, Patricia Elliot nearly stole the show), and Davie barely even registers.

That may be true, but she has some of the best lines in the show. It would seem hard not to get tons of laughs with gems like, "What will I do? I know...nothing", but Davie manages to do just that.

Patricia Elliott brought a shocking combination of emotional depth, brittle humor and aching pain to the role--and that was only what she did in "Every Day a Little Death"!

The bittersweet notes of regretfulness and rue she played in that song set a tone for the show and set up the darker colors of Desiree's "Send in the Clowns" and Frederik's monologue "Forgive me" speech.

By the time her Charlotte had come round to the final scene, she had undergone as much of a transformation as had the Egermans and Desiree.

And not in a scene-stealing way--if anything, the complexity and shadings and colors she was able to convey deepened the show overall.

She would make a helluva Madame Armfeldt now.

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I think most of it is Nunn's directorial choices about the character - i.e. going for a more subtle Chekovian kind of humour for the character. I know a lot of posters here have wished for her performance to be more grandstanding, but I've seen productions of NIGHT MUSIC where Charlotte's delivery borders on camp-drag queen one liners, which the boys in the audience always love but that make me wince.

Last I saw Davie I thought she had really blossomed and found a strong balance between what her director wants and what the role demands.

I've never seen NIGHT MUSIC, not even the film, although I do own the OBC and the NBC recordings. I've loved Bernadette ever since I was a child when she would turn up on "The Carol Burnett Show". I'm seriously thinking of seeing this now that she's in it when I head up to NYC in the next couple of weeks.

I just listened to the recording on "that site". Bernadette is absolutely brilliant. She fu*king gets it. Elaine is interesting, but I miss Angie. I can't wait to see them live. Elaine will be fine when she has a few performances under her belt. I imagine that she'll be wonderful in the book scenes. "Liasons" just doesn't seem like her song.

No one has mentioned it yet, but Elaine also maintained her commitment to Food for Thought on Monday the 12th, the night before opening in this show, by showing up at the Acorn Theater and putting on an *outstanding* performance as Amanda Wingfield in Williams' "The Pretty Trap," an early version of "The Glass Menagerie."

Of everyone who performed that night - including the wonderful Len Cariou and my idol, Marian Seldes, who is not in as good a shape as she deserves, which saddens me - Stritch was the only person who did not *seem to be reading* from her script. She got all the right laughs and also came through with a powerfully dramatic performance at the same time.

She came on stage fumbling with her pairs of glasses, trying to find her reading glasses - they had been left backstage by accident. She also looked for her orange juice - on account of her diabetes, of course.

It is a roughwen, informal environment, so it did not matter that the fourth wall was broken.

As she was looking for her glasses, to the audience: "Tennessee Williams has nothing to do with this!"

Later, as they sat down...

Jake Robards, smiling: "Do you have the right ones (glasses) now?"

Stritch: :::death stare:::

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There were parts of Erin Davie's performance that I didn't like, but I thought she was a good Charlotte and could have been an amazing one with a different director.

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who is the musical director for this show

As of last night, it's Rob Bowman, who just happens to be Stritch's personal music director.