Bette Midler - Mame? - Page 2

[Highland Guy]

Posted: 7/31/24 at 7:11pm

Theatrefanboy1 said: "Thoughts?"

Bette Midler as Mame?  OF COURSE Bette Midler as Mame.

[Owen22]

Posted: 7/31/24 at 7:48pm

I'm sure I've written this somewhere on these boards before, but Mame needs a special type of actress.  The character is both terribly pretentious and incredibly warm at the same time.  And of course needs a set of pipes and a wicked sense for comedy. Sounds like Bette Midler to me!  (Mame ages close to Bette's actual age in the show, and then begins approximately fifteen years before.  She looks ten years younger than her age, so let's say 65 at the end.  She gets Patrick then, around 50.  Probably not exactly the correct age of the character, but she and Beauregard never speak of having children of their own, so a mid 50's marriage could happen).

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 7/31/24 at 8:15pm

Kad said: "I've never had the opportunity to see a production of Mame- it's so seldom produced. Has anybody here seen a very good production that was not the original staging? The impression I've had is that the original was lighting in a bottle and that has never really been duplicated. This honestly seems like an ideal Encores show."

Whatever it is that Gene Saks, Angela Lansbury, and Frankie Michaels brought to the original does not seem to carry over, even in recreations of the original staging/design that I have seen.

Frank Rich enjoyed some aspects of the 1983 revival, but even then felt the book structure didn't work, the text was dated, found the recreated direction "mechanical", and disliked some of the performances: "The more energy that's expended, the more we notice the seams: ''Mame'' is long and repetitively constructed. With maybe two exceptions, Mr. Herman's songs annotate Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee's book rather than propel it forward: The Peter Panlike story of Mame's 20-year tutelage of Patrick, already densely plotted, is in effect told twice. The bitchy aphorisms of the dialogue seem unsophisticated now, and so do some of the numbers."

As others have cited, I've always heard brilliant things about Juliet Prowse as Mame, and going by some of the YouTube videos that are available she brought a sexier take to the role than Angela and some of the dames who followed her.

[Highland Guy]

Posted: 7/31/24 at 8:24pm

When I saw Ginger Rogers on stage in the 1969 London production, she was 58 years old.  Not once as I sat there transfixed did I question her age. All I could think was That's Ginger Rogers !!

And if I were fortunate enough to see Bette Midler on stage as "Mame", I would have the same thought:  That's Bette Midler  !!

Bette Midler will bring in an audience, no matter her age.

Updated On: 7/31/24 at 08:24 PM

[Jarethan]

Posted: 8/1/24 at 1:00am

binau said: "I saw the show live recently with Tracie Bennett circa 2020 and tbh I don’t really understand why people say it wouldn’t work. I’m not sure if they changed the text - although I will admit there were some lines if I recall such as the south thing that I didn’t fully get or know how a US audience would respond today or even then. But as a whole I didn’t feel the material was so ‘problematic’ that it couldn’t be revived? The main issue is they just need someone in the role of Mame. I don’t really see Bette in the role but at least she has a bit of charisma and can sing the role.


I think they should have revived the show with Bernadette in the late 90s or early 00s. My dream always alongside Patti."

In the original version of Mame, Mame had a huge amount of dancing.  I do not think that it would have the same impact without a dancing Mame.  I do not recall BP ever doing much dancing.  Do you really think she could have pulled it off without diluting the role?

[pmensky]

Posted: 8/1/24 at 1:34am

Jarethan said: "binau said: "I saw the show live recently with Tracie Bennett circa 2020 and tbh I don’t really understand why people say it wouldn’t work. I’m not sure if they changed the text - although I will admit there were some lines if I recall such as the south thing that I didn’t fully get or know how a US audience would respond today or even then. But as a whole I didn’t feel the material was so ‘problematic’ that it couldn’t be revived? The main issue is they just need someone in the role of Mame. I don’t really see Bette in the role but at least she has a bit of charisma and can sing the role.


I think they should have revived the show with Bernadette in the late 90s or early 00s. My dream always alongside Patti."

In the original version of Mame, Mame had a huge amount of dancing. I do not think that it would have the same impact without a dancing Mame. I do not recall BP ever doing much dancing. Do you really think she could have pulled it off without diluting the role?"

Bernadette Peters can dance. You just haven’t seen her do it in many decades. There are clips of her dancing on YouTube. 

[Jarethan]

Posted: 8/1/24 at 1:40am

I saw BP dance in George M and On the Town and Mack and Mabel when she was almost 50 years younger (OMG).  She never had much dancing...Mame is a huge dancing role.

[pmensky]

Posted: 8/1/24 at 1:46am

Jarethan said: "I saw BP dance in George M and On the Town and Mack and Mabel when she was almost 50 years younger (OMG). She never had much dancing...Mame is a huge dancing role."

The suggestion was that she could have played Mame on the 90s when she would have been in her 40s. As I said, she can dance, or she has danced. She would have easily been able to handle the dancing for the role of Mame in the 90s.

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 8/1/24 at 9:05am

Did Bernadette Peters ever dance?  Are you kidding with this?!  Take a look-see:

 

[binau]

Posted: 8/1/24 at 9:15am

Bernadette is so cute I believe during Sunday she described herself as not a dancer as such but someone who can dance to act (ie same analogy as an actor who sings).
 

She is no Chita, but of course she can and has danced.  I know it’s not the same now given her age but she is on her feet in ‘Old Friends’ quite a lot including leading a kick line (before she injured her knee and stopped doing it basically until the final performance). 

[joevitus]

Posted: 8/1/24 at 9:43am

ErmengardeStopSniveling said: "Kad said: "I've never had the opportunity to see a production of Mame- it's so seldom produced. Has anybody here seen a very good production that was not the original staging? The impression I've had is that the original was lighting in a bottle and that has never really been duplicated. This honestly seems like an ideal Encores show."

Whatever it is that Gene Saks, Angela Lansbury, and Frankie Michaels brought to the original does not seem to carry over, even in recreations of the original staging/design that I have seen.

Frank Rich enjoyed some aspects of the 1983 revival, but even then felt the book structure didn't work, the text was dated,found the recreated direction "mechanical", and disliked some of the performances:"The more energy that's expended, the more we notice the seams: ''Mame'' is long and repetitively constructed. With maybe two exceptions, Mr. Herman's songs annotate Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee's book rather than propel it forward: The Peter Panlike story of Mame's 20-year tutelage of Patrick, already densely plotted, is in effect told twice. The bitchy aphorisms of the dialogue seem unsophisticated now, and so do some of the numbers."

As others have cited, I've always heard brilliant things about Juliet Prowse as Mame, and going by some of the YouTube videos that are available she brought a sexier take to the role than Angela and some of the dames who followed her."

The book works fine. Don't know why you keep pushing this. Again, the movie still works for a lot of people, and Mame is very close to the script for Auntie Mame (large passages of dialogue are identical) with the exception of Nora and Gooch being morphed into one character. 

Now Bette is about as wrong for this material as it is possible to be, but she's a star, it's a star vehicle, and the revival would likely do great business. 

Updated On: 8/1/24 at 09:43 AM

[Owen22]

Posted: 8/1/24 at 10:16am

joevitus said: "Now Bette is about as wrong for this material as it is possible to be, but she's a star, it's a star vehicle, and the revival would likely do great business."

I honestly can't disagree with you.  Mame is a patrician WASP as written. And is a dance role (I have always advocated for Jane Krakowski's Mame being a perfect marriage between actress and role).

But she made Dolly something special (and Dolly is also probably a Catholic with the maiden name Gallagher) so we can do a little race-blind, age-blind and dance-blind casting cause she'd still be awesome in the part.

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 8/2/24 at 8:15pm

You know who'd be a fabulous Vera?

Alexandra Billings.

[Blue_Lotus]

Posted: 8/2/24 at 8:52pm

Bette Midler is way past the age range for this role. In your head it sounds good. In reality…not so much