Christine Ebersole dissapointed me. — Page 3

Absolutely. There are plenty of people working their asses off on Broadway right now - the trick is, you don't SEE it. That's the sign of a true talent. It's not supposed to look hard.

"Both times I saw Grey Gardens, Wilson was the best thing on that stage." I agree, and she was followed very closely by Erin Davie.

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The first time I saw GREY GARDENS was the third preview Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons. I had never seen the documentary. I had no clue what the show would be about. Not one critic had uttered a word. Ebersole was breathtaking. The show itself needed a lot of fixing, but Ebersole's performance was like nothing I had ever seen.

The second time I saw GREY GARDENS was the second to last press preview before Opening Night on Broadway. It was known that Ebersole had a cold at the time, but she still blew me away. The show itself had vastly improved as well.

Fast forward to June 12th, the first performance following the Tony Awards. Ebersole's performance had dwindled significantly from what I had seen eight months earlier. She seemed exhausted. Her performance had lost most of its precision. And that is what had helped define her distinct characterizations the first two times I saw it.

She doesn't have now what she had the first two times the show was reviewed. All we have in writing (and all that the Tony voters had in writing) was the reviews from press previews Off-Broadway and on Broadway, and they were GLOWING. After reading those reviews, many people go into the show with a self-fulfilling prophecy that what was written in those reviews is what they will be seeing on that stage. The people here who are expressing disappointment -- unlike the others who go on and on about the reviews and the awards, repeating what the critics said as though they were their own words -- did not let the critics tell them what to think. They thought for themselves.

Don't discount people for owning their opinions. For deciding for themselves what they saw on that stage. I discount people who let others tell them what their opinions should be.

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Updated On: 7/7/07 at 10:58 AM

She played one of Karen's diva enemies from the past. The clips are on YouTube.

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I agree with LostLeander and Rath, you shouldn't be able to see the person working so hard or being so careful with a performance.
I think all the hype and the whole "legendary" performance title has worked against the show and against Ebersole. I feel she should've taken a long vacation or left the show but she keeps going on without being able to give a fully committed performance, and that is ultimately what people should care about.
The show is strong enough to survive without its current leading lady but unfortunately the media, the critics, and audiences themselves have made it impossible.
As I said earlier, Mary-Louise Wilson and Erin Davie (most underrated performer of the season) were the ones who truly impressed me.

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That's the point though...you should have seen THREE flawless, committed performances. She has "every award known to man, every accolade in Christendom, audience adoration and critical hosannas.....," and more importantly, her show has $110 or $25 of your hard earned money. You deserve no less than 100% from her. If she can't do it, then let a better actress do it or close the show. Audra McDonald once talked about the pressure of winning a Tony award being the audience sitting there every night after the award and feeling the pressure to prove why she deserved that award. Two weeks before the Tonys there was a blur of media around a London mounting of the show with Christine and a tour which some hypothesized might star Christine also. Two weeks after the Tonys, what do we have? Christine phoning in performances until July 29th when the show (I'm sure thankfully for her) closes. If I were a Tony voter, I'd feel duped along the lines of those who bought the whole Avenue Q campaign an all it's promises from a few years ago.

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I will repeat that I saw it first in the fall, and the second time on December 1st. I don't think she was tired or over it at that point.

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i can't just ignore what i saw, artscallion. I'm sure she was brilliant at some point and still is at certain performances. But broadway is all about consistancy and stamina - it's 8 shows a week, and you mean nothing if you can't handle it. If she really can't handle 8 shows a week, then fine - but let someone who can take over.

I agree. I don't think you shoud ignore what you saw. I'm just saying, let's acknowledge it and understand that she's been doing it a long time at full steam. Add in the dynamic of her pressure not to do just evenings, etc. I mean when she took a day off here, people pounced on the what it did to that week's gross.

Again, I don't think we shouldn't talk about it, or better ways the run/vacations/replacements could have been handled. I just sense that all the people who didn't like the show or her performance to begin with are smelling blood and coming in saying it was overrated all along. I'm just saying I don't think this should be what her performance is remembered for in the history books.

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"I just sense that all the people who didn't like the show or her performance to begin with are smelling blood and coming in saying it was overrated all along."

artscallion, actually, we've not felt safe saying it before now. Around here, the story has been that if you say the tiniest word that's not positive about the performance, you're jumped on from all sides.

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is it quite possible that the two "best" musicals of the year were not quite what everyone had made them out to be??? I think so.

At least she doesn't jump around like a monkey on uppers like Laura Bell Bundy does at the Palace every night.

Can you explain to me how insulting Laura on a thread about Christine Ebersole's peformance losing power?

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I can't help it, you're just too sexy for your own good. Besides, you know Benanti was right, I have no life. I have to devote my time to something or someone.

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I saw her in it last Friday - she was amazing.
Whats even greater though is the chemistry between her and Ms. Wilson.
I hope PBS captures these great performances. They need to be preserved.