I take this personally. My beloved Golden Age musicals, well two of them, not able to outdraw the likes of Mean Girls? A generation of theatergoers who didn't grow up to the strains of "Getting to know you, Getting to know all about you" and "Whenever I feel afraid." Or "All I want is a room somewhere, Far away from the cold night air." During this period very good revivals of Carousel and Fiddler on the Roof were not given the respect and the audience deserved.
My Fair Lady, with a second cast some preferred to the original, and named the best musical of the year by the Times and I think New Yorker. Given the cold shoulder? So, why was Laura renewed? She was no draw, the March schedule had to be mangled to fit Benanti's schedule. I would have liked to see a fresh young face. Much as when Laura replaced Rebecca Luker in The Sound of Music, and was called an improvement by the Times. I had a crush on Rebecca from Prince's Show Boat and I remember thinking how hard it must have been for Rebecca to read that review.
So couldn't they have brought in Emma Stone? Oh yeah. Her voice was good enough for Sally Bowles but not for Eliza Doolittle. Reese! Definitely Reese. She was June Carter in the Johnny Cash biopic. But did she do all her own singing? Never mind. The Beaumont would be humming every night.
Speaking of Carousel, does everyone realize that many tourists think that Julie and Billy are a mixed race couple? Joshua Henry as Billy gave a fantastic, Tony-nominated performance. But many outsiders don't realize that even in Maine a colored man would not have been permitted at that time to mingle with and touch white women at the carousel. Don't like them seeing Billy as just another violent African American who of course beat his white wife.
Anyway, on recently viewing the DVR of South Pacific, I believe that it most deserved to be the one that hung around for two years. Grand in scope and gravitas, two broadly memorable songs of love and loss in "Some Enchanted Evening" and "This Nearly Was Mine." The "unique-in-musical-theater" "Bali Ha'i", whose first three notes ignite an overture that I have been known to listen in on a 20% repeat loop and listened to it played twenty times.
