Bette Midler as Dolly- Page 3

[goldenboy]

Posted: 5/21/13 at 3:46pm

I would love to see Bette as Dolly.
Perfect Yenta Diva Casting

I'd buy a ticket.

[all that jazz]

Posted: 5/21/13 at 3:49pm

Dolly would be spectacular as Dolly!! So would Bernadette!

Patti would be amazing too, but I much rather see her as Mame.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 5/21/13 at 3:54pm

I did not know Pearl Bailey was jewish. I saw it with her & she was great. She did a Patti Lupone. Someone was taking pictures & she stopped the show and told them to stop. She got a big hand.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 5/21/13 at 4:20pm

Behindthescenes, I can't let this go "Pearl Bailey when it is all black cast..if you want a Jewish person to play her then everyone must be jewish."

Care to elaborate as to why in your opinion with a black
Dolly the entire cast would have to be black, or why if you had a Dolly who read Jewish you would need to have an entire Jewish cast?

(btw I ask this as someone who is not at all in love with the idea of Bette Midler as Dolly. But that has nothing to do with her being Jewish.)

[behindthescenes2]

Posted: 5/21/13 at 5:26pm

If Pearl were to do this with an all caucasian cast, would it not look funny? Would Lea Michelle look odd doing Porgy and Bess? I am really honing in on a performer's ability to overcome their own point of view when they are not in the period of the play or musical. As brilliant as Bette Midler is, and yes she is, I don't she is an actress on the level of Streep, or MIranda Richardson, or Viola Davis, that can meld themselves into a character and you don't see them anymore, you only see the character. Yes Bette would sing the songs brilliantly, just like Streisand, but can they every shed their own personality to meld into a period piece? No, so rather than have it lopsided or ill conceived they could do it all in the way that it fits the performer. If you want complete blind casting great---then there would be many more colors on the stage besides shades of white..I just think the lead or anchor of a show (especially in a period piece) should be of the period both in style and ethnicity. It would bother the hell out of me if whites were cast in the leads of Motown.

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 5/21/13 at 6:06pm

Can you call for "line" during a song?

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 5/21/13 at 6:35pm

Cab Galloway as Horace. It don't get any better

[Someone in a Tree2]

Posted: 5/21/13 at 8:13pm

I think the one essential characteristic of a great Dolly is that she has to be absolutely in love with the audience and with everyone onstage. (Or she has to fake that quality brilliantly.) Carol Channing had it, Mary Martin had it, Pearl Bailey had it in .... (bad choice of words, sorry). But I remember sitting in the balcony as a 20-year-old and just being totally in love with Pearl Bailey holding forth on that stage (yep, even through her whole 3rd act shtick). Same thing happened when I saw Carol in one of her revivals. Same thing happened when I saw Betsy Palmer in the round at North Shore Music Theater one youthful summer in Massachusetts.

Folks I don't feel have that quality so much? Barbra Streisand, Bernadette Peters and Patty LuPone. I know I'll catch hell from all you fans of these ladies. It's ok, you can dis my gals too. But Dolly is all about sharing the love. Age doesn't matter, religion doesn't matter, God knows race doesn't matter. And for my money, Bette has the love thing down.

Updated On: 5/21/13 at 08:13 PM

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 5/21/13 at 9:21pm

"If Pearl were to do this with an all caucasian cast, would it not look funny?"

Well, no. Not really.

And anyway, what does a Jew look like? Am I supposed to be able to spot one from the mezzanine?

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 5/22/13 at 9:53am

And why single out the "preposterousness" of Bette Midler as Dolly? Why not also lament the appalling audacity of the following Jewish women in their outrageous choice of shikse roles:

Sarah Bernhardt as Phedre

Hedy Lamarr as Joan of Arc

Lauren Bacall as Margo Channing and Tess Harding

Elisabeth Bergner as Rosalind, The Duchess of Malfi, Catherine the Great and, as popularly believed, the real life Margo Channing

Claire Bloom as Ophelia, Gertrude, Clytemnestra, Jocasta, Cleopatra, Blanche DuBois, Katya Ivanovna Verkhovtseva, Catherine Earnshaw, Nora Helmer, Juliet, Roxane, Constance of Brittany, Queen Victoria, Queen Anne, Anna Karenina, The Goddess Hera, The Goddess Athene, Katharine of Aragon, Fanny Nightingale, the Lady Anne, Lady Marchmain, Lady Penwarden, Lady Dunvale, Lady Delamere, Lady Darlington, Lady Chatterley, the Empress Alexandra, Emily Dickinson and even - oy vey! - Elizabeth the Queen Mother

Dame Janet Suzman as Hedda Gabler, Masha Sergeyevna Kulygina, Rosaline, Portia, Ophelia, Rosalind, Beatrice, Kate, Lavinia, Joan of Arc, Cleopatra and the Empress Alexandra

Helena Bonham Carter as Lady Jane Grey, Ophelia, Kate Croy, Miss Havisham, Mrs. Lovett, Mme. Thenadier, Helen Shlegel and Lucy Honeychurch

Natalie Portman as Nina Mikhailovna Zarechnaya

Amy Irving as Masha Sergeyevna Kulygina, Varvara Bakunin, Maria Ogarev, Ellie Dunn and Anna Anderson (the Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanovna?)

Barbra Streisand as Daisy Gamble/Melinda

Barbara Hershey as Madame Merle

Nell Carter as Effie White

Julianna Margulies as Morgaine LaFay

Scarlett Johansson as Catherine Carbone and Maggie "the Cat" Politt

Sophie Okonedo as Winnie Mandela

Emmy Rossum as Christine Daae and that other GALLAGHER, Fiona

Rachel Weisz as Blanche DuBois, Hester Collyer and Isabella of Castile

Oh wait..... Isabella herself, la Reina Catolica, architect of the Expulsion, like most Spanish people and almost all Iberian royals, it has been argued, just might have been partly Jewish. Or as they said in 15th to 18th century Toledo, might not have been entirely "Old Christian", but rather, like Saint Teresa of Avila, Diego Velasquez and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, mas que solamente un poquito Judio.

Then again a great many Irish people, such as GALLAGHERS, have Spanish ancestry (aka "black Irish," that whole Armada shipwreck thing), and who even knows if both of Dolly's parents were Irish anyway.

Just think of us all as one big happy gorgeous mosaic of a family!






































Updated On: 5/22/13 at 09:53 AM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 5/22/13 at 10:10am

A propos of Nell Carter, OMG, I had never seen this before:

Nell Carter doing "Me and My Town" from Anyone Can Whistle:

http://youtu.be/T5jHzHii_RM

[GymRat]

Posted: 5/22/13 at 12:11pm

There is a serious and shocking racism in this thread.

[Kad]

Posted: 5/22/13 at 12:24pm

Hello, Dolly! might be set in the 1890s, but it's not a period piece. It's a whimsical, sentimental romantic farce. It's timeless. This allows it to be a perfect candidate for a cast of every imaginable type of person.

[Wynbish]

Posted: 5/22/13 at 12:31pm

Would Lea Michelle look odd doing Porgy and Bess?

Irrelevant, since that would influence the story.

It would bother the hell out of me if whites were cast in the leads of Motown.

Very irrelevant, since the leads were real people and Dolly Levi was fictional even in the Wilder version

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 5/22/13 at 1:49pm

There is a serious and shocking racism in this thread.

Not so shocking if you've read any BWW thread concerning people of any other race/ethnicity that's not 100% white. Hell, even the most unexpected threads that have nothing to do with race turn into an opportunity for some people on here to display their incredibly racist attitude.

[all that jazz]

Posted: 5/22/13 at 2:15pm

"If Pearl were to do this with an all caucasian cast, would it not look funny?"

Didn't Pearl tour for a while with the caucasian company before her all black run?

[jimmycurry01]

Posted: 5/22/13 at 3:03pm

"If Pearl were to do this with an all caucasian cast, would it not look funny?"

No, it would not look funny. There is nothing wrong with colorblind casting in a stage production that does not feature racial issues in its plot. No one had a problem with Audra in the revival of 110 in the Shade. If it were on screen it may be a different case, but that is because the suspension of disbelief works differently on screen than it does on stage.

"Would Lea Michelle look odd doing Porgy and Bess?"

She sure would, but that show features plot points involving racial issues.

[goldenboy]

Posted: 5/22/13 at 9:08pm

I didn't know Helena Bonham Carter was Jewish. Jewish.. Episcopalean.. Baptist whatever... she stilled ruined Sweeney Todd.

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 5/22/13 at 9:45pm

No I don't believe Pearl Bailey ever played Dolly with Caucasian production: that would have been rather shocking for the time. Thankfully times have changed.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 5/22/13 at 10:31pm

Goldenboy here's more info on HBC; and I agree with you that Sweeney was not her finest hour (to put it mildly).
The Religious Affiliation of HBC

[Playbilly]

Posted: 5/22/13 at 10:44pm

Phylicia Rasad in August:Osage County. The thinking on this board would have resented that wonderful performance.

[Brick]

Posted: 5/23/13 at 1:46am

I'm still so bummed the planned Patti revival of Dolly fell through. Does anyone know the changes Jack O'Brien wanted to make that Herman didn't like?

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 5/23/13 at 8:58am

Playbilly, I don't think it's most of us on the board who have voiced those kinds of objections (and btw, I hope it's clear, my long post above was meant to be heavy-handedly ironic). Still, it often surprises me that among those who are so enthusiastic about the American popular theater, which since the days of Kern and Rodgers and Hammerstein has stood, however imperfectly, against narrow-mindedness and for the humanities and an embracing sense of inclusion (not in the name of a facile appearance of political correctness/progressiveness but in the name of what's right in life and in the art), and against narrow-minded bigotry, can be so surprisingly bigoted when it comes to casting.



Updated On: 5/23/13 at 08:58 AM

[Kad]

Posted: 5/23/13 at 9:30am

Because people can accept the convention of people suddenly bursting into song and dance but if there's a black person in Hello, Dolly! then all they can do is think of how it's not period appropriate.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 5/23/13 at 11:31am

Yup! Also, I have often wondered why the opera world seems to have gotten over all of this so long ago, and seems to have little problem distinguishing the implications of a black Lady Macbeth from those of a black Desdemona.

Updated On: 5/23/13 at 11:31 AM