Actors Breaking Character — Page 3

To the last 2 posters: Yes, audiences often love it, and yes, mishaps do happen on stage. My issue is just that it seems like Idina has been doing it a lot, and in ways that completely break out of character, rather than doing her best to stay in the moment like a professional. Also, delongpre, you say "some people see it as special when the show strays from the same old same old," but if it happens so often, it's not special, and becomes unprofessional.

Much of the behaviour described is completely self indulgent. I know actors are human and I don't need them to break character to tell me. I saw a production recently where the set broke down causing a bit of mayhem what impressed me most was the actors improvised around it, made the audience laugh but did so without breaking character. That was professional behaviour while much of what has been described here is not.

Interesting, the people who have seen the show multiple times are the ones who don't mind. Yet most people aren't at "If/Then" to savor another performance's triumphs and one-night-only eccentricities, but merely to be fully engaged by an emotion-driven story. "If/Then" has enough focus and storytelling issues without losing its bifurcated character in a fit of giggles. I am appalled, and I'm a fan of both the show and Menzel. I saw Debbie Reynolds break character in "Woman of the Year," and though it wasn't as noticeable as these incidents, it marred the evening, particularly in light of the triple threat nature of Reynolds' take on Tess (which was far more accomplished than Bacall's or Welch's). Anything can happen, but if this thread is anecdotal evidence about Menzel's concentration problems -- particularly if she says "it's the last show of the week, foks" -- she should be ashamed. It's not cute. And it probably doesn't help a show struggling to survive (and it is) on word-of-mouth.

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Updated On: 10/10/14 at 10:50 AM

I think we can all agree that the "Fanzel" audience as whole LOVES when she breaks, which is probably why she thinks it's ok to do it so often. But it's still unprofessional by the theatrical standards. As others have pointed out, any actor who is less famous than she is would NOT get away with breaking so many times in such a blatant way -- regardless of how much her fans love it.

I think another aspect which makes Menzel's breaking in this show far more appropriate than others is that it is such a human show. She's playing a character, yes, but it's just a normal woman, not the wicked witch of the west. So while it does disrupt the story for a moment, the audience is already connected on such a human level that Menzel opening up as herself briefly almost helps to perpetuate the humanity of the show. I do agree that pretty much any other actor in this show or any other show would not get away with this but for some reason, in my gut, it feels okay and sincere here.

I remember reading about a lot of character breaks by Menzel and Chenoweth in Wicked. It sounds like Menzel may have picked up the habit during that show. When I saw Wicked, Chenoweth did this thing with the mirror in Popular where she tried to shine the reflection of the light into audience members' eyes, and I thought it was silly and pandering to the audience rather than being true to the character. I think, with the right show and the right performer, it can be fun to see character breaks to an extent, but there is a limit at which it becomes more about "Idina Menzel is so funny!" as opposed to having anything to do with the character she is playing or the show.

Character breaks make it hard for the audience to believe in you as the character as opposed to the actor.

IMO, character breaks are only fun if you're not that invested in the characters as real people. Character breaks in Next to Normal, for example, would have seemed very out of place.

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Updated On: 10/10/14 at 03:22 PM

Oh please. Idina breaks character 3 times and you're ready to revoke her Tony. Nathan Lane "breaks character" for laughs in every single performance for the past 2 decades and no one ever calls that unprofessional.

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Lane broke character when I saw him in Buckley.

"To the last 2 posters: Yes, audiences often love it, and yes, mishaps do happen on stage. My issue is just that it seems like Idina has been doing it a lot, and in ways that completely break out of character, rather than doing her best to stay in the moment like a professional. Also, delongpre, you say "some people see it as special when the show strays from the same old same old," but if it happens so often, it's not special, and becomes unprofessional. "

Idina choking on cereal certainly was not intentional. She tried to hold it together but when she realized she needed water in order to continue she had to break character. The other time she broke character was also not intentional. She tried to get back into the scene but her line mistake took her and the other characters off the beat. Her attempts to fix it make the other players laugh and they just threw their hands up and started over, wanting to give the audience the correct scene. But she explained later that at the end of a long week they get tired. Her role is very emotionally taxing and she makes a lot of quick changes and fast stage moves. It takes incredible focus to keep it together with all of that distraction. For a line to escape her from time to time is more than permissible. I wasn't saying people go to theater to see the breaks, but most regulars do not react badly when an actor goes off. HELL this is what live theater is all about. You're looking at real people on a stage. If you want line perfection stay home and watch the same movie over and over again.

^Well, I think she was rattled by that a bit as it definitely wasn't her best presentation, but it could've turned out a whole lot worse.

"I wasn't saying people go to theater to see the breaks, but most regulars do not react badly when an actor goes off." (delongpre)

Certainly from the Twitter search I did, all those reactions were quite positive to the humor, including those who hadn't seen the show before (tourists). I still think it doesn't happen "all the time" like some people claim and it's just a matter of publicized probability. Ultimately, do these sorts of things harm the economics of a show by word of mouth? People can wax academic about theatrical class in these situations, but there are only so many ways an audience member can react to a character break and send the event off by word-of-mouth.

A) "My friend saw it last night and the main broke character and laughed for 3 minutes! How disgustingly unprofessional, I'll never see that show or anything that actor is in!"

B) "My friend saw it last night and the main broke character and laughed for 3 minutes! I hope that doesn't happen when I see it."

C) "My friend saw it last night and the main broke character and laughed for 3 minutes! Man, I wish I got to witness that."

Yeah, A doesn't seem likely for any normal person. B and C more likely.

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In THE BOY FROM OZ, it was practically a year-round breaking character for Hugh Jackman as Peter Allen.

I remembered this interview by NYTimes Jesse Green towards the end of the yearlong run --

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/05/theater/newsandfeatures/05GREE.html

>>Q. How has the show changed from a year ago?

A. About three weeks into rehearsal I began to feel we really had to break the thing open, that I had to do some kind of ad-lib audience-participation. So I just sketched out a thing, and I did it at rehearsals, and if you can imagine in the rehearsal room, with no audience, it's not really funny. So we dropped it, but then it kind of recurred organically one night, after we opened, when someone came in late, with the usher shining the torch, and sat down right in front of me in the front row. I just sort of stopped short and started having a conversation. Now, when the latecomers don't come, I really regret it because the whole of Act I is very different. Of course, I have to be careful who I pick because some people come late deliberately to do routines; I can tell. I never pick a latecomer who is in the front row.

Q. The ad-lib section at the beginning of Act II, when you often invite someone to come onstage and banter or dance, has become one of the highlights of the show. People come back for it.

A. It started around November, and I was nervous that I would trip myself up, that I wouldn't be funny. But now I've realized that people laugh just because they sense that you're winging it. And, really, they do all the work. I get someone up to dance and people just go mental because they're all thinking, "That could be me."

Q. Has it ever gotten out of hand?

A. One woman took her top off. She was in the front row, and I was just speechless. Another time, someone yelled out, "I want to bite your butt." And I said, "Well, come on, lady, come on down," thinking she wouldn't. But down she came, and I stuck out my bum, and she just chomped in.<<<

Updated On: 10/11/14 at 07:24 PM

Yes, perhaps in the first scene for the second act when he was being Peter Allen in a concert, that was not technically breaking character.

But towards the beginning of the show when latecomers come in ( he was acting as Peter during his early years) he would break character and adlib with his audience. At that point he was not interacting with the audience in a concert.

But how would this get classified -- in one scene during a concert moment, he could not find the audience member who shouted back at him. Hugh, no longer acting like Peter, started hunting for him in his characteristic Wolverine manner ( brows knitted, eyes looking fiercely beneath the brows, fierce scowl as he went from left to right of the stage )...When he found him, the audience member turned out to be a hunk - and Peter Allen came right back to the scene. The audience went LOL!

Updated On: 10/13/14 at 05:09 AM

I think it's very selfish of an actor to ever break character unless it's absolutely necessary.

i.e When Idina was choking. I'd much rather see an actor break character than see an actor die on stage. I think we can all agree on that.

I'm even slightly okay with actors breaking to deal with an unruly audience member. If that person is so distracting to the actor, and they can't concentrate, and the house management isn't dealing with the situation properly, I would be okay with the actor addressing that audience member, so the actor can regain their composure and give the performance they have worked hard on.

But I don't think it's ever appropriate for an actor to break character because they mess up a line or another actor cracks during a song. Especially if you're a star. You are getting paid a large amount of money to perform and people are paying a lot of money to see you perform. And as an artist, it is your job to perform the script verbatim (unless otherwise agreed upon with the playwright, or established in the rehearsal process). Actors are not the most important part of a play. They are replaceable artist that are hired to bring the vision of the writer(s) and director to life. They do get creative input, but they do not get to do whatever they want.

I don't care if every single member of the audience enjoyed watching Idina say "Sorry it's the last show of the week". Brian Yorkey did not write those words. If I were the writer and I saw that show. I would be angry and embarrassed. Writers work long before the actors start on a play. For Idina to show that kind of disrespect to well regarded artists is very unprofessional.

Also, I doubt every member of the audience enjoyed her breaking character. Maybe they didn't complain on Facebook or whatever. But if I had been in the audience, I know that it would have taken me out of the moment. And that's not what I paid for. I'm sure others felt like that. It's an actor's responsibility to give the best performance for every member of the audience, not just their fans.

Updated On: 10/13/14 at 10:51 PM