Break a Leg, Harvey and Andrea! — Page 2

It remins me of Rebecca Luker. She can sing beutifully. But she can't act to save her life and she is so boring and stiff on stage. I want to see a performance that takes me in and involves me emotionaly. That is what Harvey is giving at the minkskoff right now.

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yes but it is supposed to be musical theatre :-P

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yes but it is still supposed to be musical enjoyable. Sorry Harvey as tevye is not musically enjoyable to me.

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umgeoboy;
Then don't go.

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lna,

Harvey's voice as Tevye is not inperfect. If you called missing note as inperfect, you are really tolerant to Harvey.

I only watched Ms.Luker as Lily in the secret garden and I love her very much. OK, maybe she is stiff in other shows, but in TSG her voice is beautiful. Let me put it this way, in that specific show, if there is another Lily who act wonderful but missed the notes. I defintely will say that Ms.Luker is much better than her.

And I don't think Molina's acting bad either. His " If I bend that far, I will break" is the most heartbreaking words I ever heard. Harvey's dilivery cannot match him.

Ok, I am still so confused BEYOND BELIEF (::hums Master of the House::)

Sanda,

I could not agree more. I thought Harvey was going to be so much better. He was comic and all but thoroughly missed when he had to be the fatherly figure. When he yelled and got angry I thought he was going to pass out from trying to get angry. It just completely missed. I feel terrible for all the people that have to listen to him sing every night.

I know Harvey doesn't have the greatest voice, so I was expecting a very funny, yet spiritual (as it's meant to be) If I Were a Rich Man. Failed. He did not do anything extremely memorable during the song, other than sticking is tongue out at the end when he chants (after talking about the Rich men coming to get advice from him). When I say memorable, I mean in a completely notorious way.

Sabbath Prayer was lackluster at best. Andrea Martin is not as vocally strong as Graff. What's sad is that she carried that song. I have no real complaints about her. But Harvey just seemed to be there.

Sunrise, Sunset. Ok, I will give Harvey a thumbs up (but just one). The song is low, and he did a moderate job with it.

Chavaleh. I got more emotion from the chorus and Chava than from Harvey. Not to compare, but when Molina did it I was left unsure who to feel sorry for. "On the one hand," Tevye just lost his daughter. "On the other hand," Chava just lost her family. When Harvey performed it I was left feeling sorry only for Chava.

(Note, I only put in a few songs to give a general idea)

Harvey is a great comic actor. He is also a great writer. Unfortunately, his singing left a lot to be desired. I thought, "Hey, it's Harvey Freakin-Fierstein! He may not sing, but the emotion will definately make up for that. Swing and a miss!

Now, back to Sanda's original comment.

When I first saw Molina I said, "OK...he's a good actor. He's a good singer. He just lacks that yiddishkeit. When I heard Harvey'd be doing it, I thought, "Enter Yiddishkeit." Sure, it enetered. But the singing and full fatherly emotion left.

Looking back, I like(d) Molina a whole lot more.

As for the rest of the cast, they are still brilliant. Nancy, Robert, and John particularily stand out.

Andrea Martin is very good with the comedy. I prefered Randy Graff vocally and Graff's comic approach was not bad at all.

Harvey may be a big name, but he is, to go against the poster's saying, "Not a Match!"

EDIT: I know Harvey tried his best and really wanted to do the role. I feel better for negatively criticizing him so, but I believe in my opinion 100%.

P.S. I walked into the theatre knowing full well that he woulndn't do great vocally. I had higher hopes for his acting.

Updated On: 1/20/05 at 04:25 PM

sanda,

I didn't say that Harvey missed only one note; I haven't seen him in Fiddler yet. I know that he doesn't have a beautiful singing voice, and I don't expect him to be perfect. I don't think you are destroying anyone's attitude towards Harvey, because if we like him, we like him. I think most of us know what he can do.

I think that your views are perfectly valid; they just don't describe my experience of theater. I can respect/accept that. I've heard a lot about (and seen) Rebecca Luker, and she's just not a big star, nor was I blown away by her performance (despite her beautiful singing). Some people are affected more by the acting, some by the singing. If you care about the singing that much, there are some actors you aren't going to appreciate. (And you're going to shake your head when people praise them.) Just be prepared!

I heard Barbara Cook talking about singing. She said (this is very roughly paraphrased) that some actors are able to sing and to act at the same time, while others can sing very well, but don't seem to be able to "act" the songs. I realize I've heard songs that sounded wrong to me, and it was because, as she said, the singer wasn't paying any attention to the words. So even though every note was perfect, I didn't care for it.

I know some people really liked Alfred Molina's performance (I don't think the reviews criticized his acting exactly). Most of the criticism I heard was that Tevye should be larger than life, and that they didn't think Molina turned in that kind of performance.

It's a matter of liking different things, and I don't think you need to change what you like. Just learn to read between the lines in reviews!

Well, I'll give my 2 cents worth once again, since at least both sides of the coin seem to be present here. I agree with those that have made the point that is is after all a Musical #1. Opera no, and yes, acting is important, but the singing should not hurt one's ears.

I wish any actor a hearty "Break a Leg," and will do so here, but at the same time after seeing Fiddler last week with Harvey, I will not return while he is in the role of Tevye. He is an incredible actor, but I believe that he is miscast as Tevye. I do understand that others think that he is "perfect."

That said I loved it with Albert Molina and Randy Graff. Saw it once with the understudy for Tevye, Mark Lotito and while he did not play the part with the energy of Albert he was still good. I saw Albert in the role three times actually and his energy did, for me, make him "larger than life."

Fiddler's music is too beautiful to not have someone that can at least carry a tune. Chavaleh, such a beautiful song, was so bad with Harvey that had I been on a aisle, I would have left the show to spare my ears. Andrea Martin was fine as Golde.

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Updated On: 1/20/05 at 05:02 PM

doc, whos albert