Benanti & Radnor to Lead Revival of She Loves Me in 2016! — Page 3

I bought the last Broadway recording of this show without ever having seen the show…based on the recommendation of a friend who did see it and said it was great music.
I have found myself listening to it a lot over the years. Even though I've still never seen the show.
It really is that fantastic!

"henrikegerman - her acting ability has nothing to do with it. Like it or not, all actors are going to be at least somewhat limited by their appearance. When it comes to this role, Benanti is in the unique position of having the opposite problem of most actresses: she's actually TOO pretty."

Distinctive Baritone, I realize you aren't knocking Benanti's acting ability. But her particular gifts as an actor have absolutely everything to do with her being able to use herself to make us believe she can be a variety of different women, and, as someone already said, in Gypsy, she wonderfully made us believe she was two sides of the same woman at different stages of her life, first a shy and attention deprived young woman (and not impressively beautiful) and then an iconic sex symbol.

Frankly every time we have these types of discussions about the limitations of certain actors to play certain roles, it's most revealing of how all of us - I count myself among the masses here - suffer from a lack of imagination in what we think a particular performer might be able to achieve with a role that strikes us as very different from what we've seen or remember that performer doing before.

Benanti's utter transformation in Gypsy is proof that she should have no problem giving us an Amalia who - if the production sees fit - convincingly isn't drop dead gorgeous.

But what if we had only seen Benanti play drop dead gorgeous women before this - even that wouldn't be persuasive proof that she's incapable of believably toning down her looks should it prove important for a role (whether it is important for Amalia - I don't necessarily think it is - is another story).






The two sides of Benanti

Updated On: 1/21/15 at 07:38 PM

What roles did Gavin Creel and Rory O'Malley do in the reading?

Gavin Creel was Kodaly and Rory O"Malley was Arpad.

The concert was something that really no one should have missed.

As I said then: the perfect musical, the perfect cast, the perfect audience and the perfect evening.

I share Notsovirginmary's sentiment about a certain irony in the discussion re: Benanti's looks being wrong for a typical Amalia, as I've also heard - though strongly disagreed - people saying that Benanti is not beautiful.

I also find it difficult to believe that she can't convince us that she is youthful as Amalia. Hell, it was only six years ago that she had absolutely no problem convincing us that she was a teenage Gypsy Rose Lee!

I think we are just so used to seeing Benanti, of late, as herself -a modern, very sexy, mature and very contemporarily funny woman, that some of us are forgetting how good she is at being old-world vulnerable/reserved/charming/serious/warm. I have no doubt that the right actress for Ilona, even if actually younger than Benanti (who is a year younger than Kelli O"Hara, who was an absolutely perfect Amalia just a couple years back), would have no problem achieving the required contrast between the two lovably lovestruck ladies of the Maraczek Parfumerie. And, if they cast someone like the concert's Krakowski (oh if it actually could be Krakowski), then they would actually find an Ilona substantially older than Benanti's Amalia (just as Krakowski was substantially older than O'Hara's Amalia - not that it was all that apparent, frankly it's much more about the worldly differences between the two women then it is about their gap in years - in the concert).

But, having said all of that, I must confess that in a perfect world, I would be very happy if Kelly and Laura could switch roles for their upcoming revivals. While I have no doubts about a Benanti Amalia, a Benanti Mrs. Anna seems just so right, and while I have no doubts about an O"Hara Mrs. Anna her Amalia was sublime, and, even more of the moment, had fantastic chemistry with Radnor's Georg.

Updated On: 1/22/15 at 09:27 AM

I'd normally spend my time defending Benanti's casting, but she doesn't need me to. She's going to absolutely nail this and around this time next year, she'll show that to everyone.

The people who "can't see this" remind of those who thought Audra McDonald couldn't do Lady Day. Or Sutton Foster couldn't do Violet. Or Kelli O'Hara in The Pajama Game, South Pacific, Bells are Ringing, and Bridges of Madison County.

For all the complaining people on here do about boring casting, their lack of imagination is pretty ironic.

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