Bobby is Nicky!

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 9/27/11 at 10:22am

I searched and - bizarrely - found nothing here on this here.

Anybody want to weigh in?

Bobby Cannavale cast as Nicky Arnstein Updated On: 9/27/11 at 10:22 AM

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 9/27/11 at 10:38am

We already done weighed in, concern about his singing.

But most of us like him.

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 9/27/11 at 5:20pm

For me, Nicky Arnstein doesn't sing any songs I care about anyway. If Bobby Cannavale wants to talk his way through them (not saying he actually will), it's fine by me.

What I do like is the idea of an Arnstein who's a little rougher around the edges than Omar Sharif. Given the circles in which Nicky Arnstein traveled, I doubt that buying a tuxedo shirt suddenly turned him into the Prince of Wales. I accepted Sharif in the film only because I assumed I was seeing the character from Fanny's point of view.

[Mildred Plotka]

Posted: 9/27/11 at 5:39pm

He sings 2 songs with Fanny and I'd hardly call either of them remotely challenging. I think his charm and sex appeal with outweigh any singing skills he may lack.

[Owen22]

Posted: 9/27/11 at 9:47pm

His casting got me much more excited than Lauren's.

[ChiChi]

Posted: 9/27/11 at 9:51pm

I LOVE that man. First thing I remember seeing him in was the remake of the movie "Gloria." Not a great movie, but I fell in love with him immediately. Sutton best watch out. I'm planning to marry him. (When's that gonna be?) As soon as I meet him!

[nealb1]

Posted: 9/27/11 at 11:48pm

Nicky sings 2 songs in Act 1 - "I Wanna Be Seen With You" & "You Are Woman." In Act 2, he has a reprise of "Don't Rain On My Parade."

[Wilmingtom]

Posted: 9/29/11 at 10:56am

Cannavale is too savvy to take on something he doesn't think he can do well so I think he'll get through the score just fine. Sidney Chaplin was certainly no great singer nor was Sharif. I'm really enthused by this casting!

[madbrian]

Posted: 9/29/11 at 11:32am

I like Cannavale and hope he succeeds, but if they were going that route (non-singer), my first choice would have been Liev Schreiber.

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 9/29/11 at 5:53pm

Oddly, I think Sydney Chaplin was considered "good looking leading man who sings" in his day. That's pretty much all that was required of the leading man in BELLS ARE RINGING. (Dean Martin took the part in the film.)

I think singers have gotten better over the decades, so Chaplin sounds lacking only by comparison.

[jsg03jd]

Posted: 9/29/11 at 7:07pm

Maybe they can insert a full frontal nude scene for Nicky in this revival - just for Bobby Cannavale.

And his admirers. ;o)

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 9/29/11 at 9:16pm

^^^^^

Sounds good to me. I have fifth-row center seats for Jan. 17.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 10/3/11 at 12:29pm

I was just listening to Chaplin sing "I'm Just Taking My Time" from "Subways" on youtube and was surprised at how bad it was. He really couldn't sing or even singspiel. At all. Even his phrasing is awful.

Yet, his voice had a deep, pleasant and sexy timbre, which was perhaps especially appealing in that era.

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 10/3/11 at 2:32pm

With the exception of character actors like Danny Kaye or Bert Lahr, I think leading men before the 1970s tended to sound pretty much like their operetta counterparts.

Part of the reason may be that leading men were given a very small range of feelings to express. Rodgers & Hammerstein wrote somewhat more complicated roles for men. But compare Frank's songs to Annie's in ANNIE GET YOUR GUN or Fred's to Lili's in KISS ME, KATE.

Men took action while women had feelings--until the movies (Marlon Brando, James Dean) taught us otherwise. (I'm paraphrasing Michael Bronski here.)

And in FUNNY GIRL, everybody (male or female) gets short shrift except for Fanny. By the time they finished the famously numerous rewrites, it was practically a night club act for Streisand.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 10/3/11 at 7:44pm

Gaveston, I think we are about to get into it again.... I understand your point if we are talking about a Raitt, Drake, or Goulet, even a Kiley or a Cullum,

And I understand you are not talking about clowns like Silvers, Mostel, Lahr, Kaye, Bolger, etc.

But....

Todd Duncan, Anthony Newley, Jerry Orbach, Robert Preston, Robert Morse, Sammy Davis, Jr., Gene Kelly, Richard Burton, Yul Brynner, Daniel Massey, Larry Kert, Robert Alda, Alan Alda, Walter Huston, Steve Lawrence, Herschel Bernardi, Joel Grey, James Dunn

All guys who took leading roles of great feeling and depth and didn't sound like operetta guys before, and sometimes well before. 1970.




Updated On: 10/4/11 at 07:44 PM

[Gaveston2]

Posted: 10/3/11 at 9:18pm

No need to get into it, Henrik; I'm guilty of over-generalizing. (And we haven't even talked about Rex Harrison!) It's true there were musicals with leads written for actors who were considered essentially "non-singers".

But there was also an (unofficial) category of "good looking leading man who sings stiffly" and you listed the best of them in Raitt, Drake, Goulet, Kiley and Cullum.

I think Sydney Chaplin was of that ilk, only without the natural voice of Raitt and Goulet, or the acting chops of Kiley and Cullum.