I'm sorry you didn't enjoy Tonya's performance. I've seen her three times (both at the Public and on Broadway) and each time she gave an absolutely magnificent performance both from an acting and a singing perspective -- certainly the single greatest performance by an actress in a musical this season. Hers is vocally the most difficult and challenging role of the five nominated for the Tony and it is completely understandable that on some nights it is going to be a struggle for her to give all of her quite formidable resources to give all of the life and power and nuance that IS Caroline.
I can remember seeing Patti Lupone in vocally off nights in "Evita" and Jennifer Holliday belting herself hoarse through performances of "Dreamgirls" and yet I still saw the genius. The first time I saw Tonya at an early preview at The Public, she was vocally ragged and raw and working hard to keep the performance together, but still I saw the essence of the character of Caroline. Here is a woman who was beaten and abused by her husband -- the man of her life -- yet, she has managed to find the strength and dignity to leave and strike out on her own, taking on the responsibility of raising four children..... alone. She longs for a man, a REAL man -- Nat King Cole if he were available, but obviously he's not -- but none are on the horizon, so she just maintains and carries on. She works for a family -- nice enough she guesses, but $30 a week to iron clothes in a basement ("there's no underground in Louisiana... there is only un-der-wa-ter") isn't enough to live on, but then she doesn't really have any other better options, so just just keeps on ironing and carrying on. The little white boy of the family is obviously looking for her to be some kind of mother-surrogate, but she already has 4 children of her own -- sorry, but she already has enough problems of her own to deal with without taking his on as well (she'll let him light her once-a-day cigarette.....hopefully that'll be enough for him).
The world around her is changing -- the civil rights movement is heating up and black people are finding a place at the table. Her best friend is "changing," dressing like the young folks, going to college to take advantage of opportunities Caroline never had and probably never will have. The world in 1963 Louisiana is changing all around her -- her friend, her daughter, her community -- changing so fast that she can't even begin to even think about trying to go along with it. The musical is entitled "Caroline" "OR" "Change" for a reason -- Caroline can see the future, can see all of the new opportunities, can understand that the world that she has known is in transition, BUT she eventually realizes that she cannot take advantage of any of it. Heartbreakingly, she comes to understand that the hope and promise and freedom of the future is not for her, but for her children.
On the surface (at least to her employers and anyone else within eyeshot) she seems to be a very religious, old-fashioned, but cold and embittered woman, who's anger and rigidness they just don't understand. We in the audience however can see the real woman who's real resentment is for her realization that she cannot "change" -- unlike everyone else around her -- because for her to "change"... to realize her dreams, she would have to destroy the dreams of the ones she cares the most about.
Caroline MUST sacrifice her potential future and stay in her degrading $30 a week existence in order for her children to have the opportunity to achieve all the things that she couldn't. I have known many Carolines in my life and this was the first time I have ever seen anyone try and tell that story in a Broadway musical. Caroline -- OR -- change ..... and without the Carolines, the many extraordinary changes of the last generation or two could never have happened..... for so many individuals, as well as for entire communities.
That people left at intermission has nothing whatsoever to do with Pinkins' or the rest of the cast's performances which are all exceptional, or frankly any aspect of the show itself (trust me, I can make a VERY long list of acclaimed Tony award winning shows where I saw a dozen, even in a few cases, dozens of people walk out of at intermission -- this includes every one of Sondheim's shows). I absolutely LOVE the fact that this musical makes no attempt to cater to the audiences' preconceived notions of what a "BIG BROADWAY MUSICAL" is supposed to be. There aren't any choruses of happy tapdancers or showy bejeweled spectacles or flying monkeys to placate the masses -- well.....thank god and FAN--FRIGGIN-TASTIC.
There have several reviews and criticisms that I have heard and read of this show that seem to suggest that if this "stoic" "one-dimensional" "unsympathetic" "mean" Caroline character had just .... I don't know.... suddenly broken out into a Broad Toothy Grin and SMILED at the audience, did a nice little happy soft shoe and a buck-and-wing, and at the end of the show, gave all the white folks onstage a big ole HUG and handed the little boy a carton of smokes, sang an uplifting spiritual and then maybe made a speech about how she had realized just how happy she was to be a maid, followed by an impassioned recitation of racial harmony and unity and justice for all .......well, heck, then THIS and not "Wicked" would be the show to beat for the Best Musical Tony.
This is a very smart and respectful and thoughtful examination of the choices (limited as they so obviously were) that a poor, uneducated black domestic may have had in the South in 1963. Unlike "A Member of the Wedding" or "Driving Miss Daisy" or "Beulah" or so many other popular "feelgood" (for white people) totally BS stories where the black "domestic" so loved and was so devoted to the white family that they worked for that they seemingly never even thought about their own personal reality -- their family, their wife/husband, their children, their sexuality, their hopes and dreams..... From "Gone With The Wind" to "Bagger Vance," these characters only exist to the extent that they fulfill the desires of the white people they work for -- beyond that, they are invisible. Who THEY are as people is never even considered.
This musical, however, is Caroline's story. It is lyically and richly told with equal doses of longing, pathos and resignation. Tesori's score and Kushner's book and lyrics give flesh and depth to the story of a brave, passionate woman who is simply trying to deal with the hand that has been dealt to her. The world hasn't done right by her , but nonetheless, she is determined to do right by her children. The fact is that, as any thorough reading of the history of the period will show, there were FAR more Carolines during the Civil Rights movement than Rosa Parkses or Fannie Lou Hamers, and the Carolines are to be respected and embraced....
Tonya Pinkins' performance (whatever her vocal state on a given night) encompasses all of these complicated layers of guilt, anger, love of family, regret, sexual longing, self-doubt, loneliness and basic raw human emotion. Altogether they constitute a performance that is truly the stuff of legend.
Idina has won nothing in terms of the early critics' awards and received several rather lukewarm/unenthusiastic reviews when her show opened (especially compared to her co-star Chenowith who got raves and a love letter from Ben Brantley) so there is no reason to believe she is in the running for the Tony or anything else. Murphy is the frontrunner since she has swept the early critics' awards (whether she's the favorite for the Tony or not isn't clear since she's already won twice -- including once during the whole Julie Andrews/Victor Victoria scandal/hoopla). Pinkins just received an Obie along with across the board critical raves. The race is between her and Murphy. Who wins? We'll see on the 6th.
"What a story........ everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end." -- Birdie
[http://margochanning.broadwayworld.com/]
"The Devil Be Hittin' Me" -- Whitney
