#1
Posted: 2/19/08 at 1:07am
For those of you who subscribe or buy "The Sondheim Review" this is old news, but I just came across this fascinating interview with Murphy. God, I love this woman! And God Stephen Sondheim is a genius, period. My favorite excerpts follow, though I LOVE the whole thing:
TSR: Was there a particular moment in Passion that was hardest to learn?
DM: "I Read." It was difficult to learn, only because I said to James and Steve that I have to act the SH*T out of this as well as sing the SH*T out of it, and it's impossible to do that in two days [for the final audition]. It's quite long, quite complex, and I said if I couldn't get lost in Fosca's world, I couldn't do it well. To really be lost, I really needed to know the song, so I postponed it.
(...)
There was also an interesting thing that happened with "Lucy and Jessie."
TSR: The ending?
DM: Exactly! The song was originally done without a vocal ending — it just went to dancing, never returning to the lyric "just fine." I didn't think a lot of about it. But as we rehearsed I thought it would be great to finish it vocally. Maybe I'd have felt differently if I was a dancer accustomed to all the time going into a big dancing thing and knowing that's what would send the song through the roof. But then I watched — more prep work — the [1985] concert version at Lincoln Center and noticed they added a little vocal thing at the end [for Lee Remick]. Now, it wasn't what we ultimately did, and it wasn't necessarily definitive, but I felt there was something satisfying about it. So I asked Casey [Nicholaw, the director] and Eric if we could do something like that, and they said they didn't think it would be a problem as Steve had obviously approved it before. But apparently Steve said no: It's a patter song, and he said you don't return to the same lyric in a patter song; it's a dance number.
TSR: So much for that idea.
DM: Initially the lyric ends with "I could tell you someone who would finally feel just fine." So we're doing the sitzprobe, and Steve says, "I have an idea for the end of the song. I'm watching you, and I think instead of singing, 'I could tell you someone who would finally feel …" it should be "I could tell you someone who would finally feel/I could tell you someone who would finally feel/I could you tell someone who would finally feel just fine." Someone who would finally feel. Doesn't matter what Phyllis feels so long as she feels it."
TSR: An acting moment as much as a singing moment.
DM: Wait! And then Steve said, "However, you're screwing up a lyric." He said, "It isn't 'I could tell you someone who could finally feel …' It's 'I could tell you someone who would finally feel just fine."
(...)
TSR: Really?
DM: Most of us changed into character shoes for "Who's That Woman?" because we wanted to wear our most glamorous four-and-a-half-inch heels with our gowns. But we couldn't dance in them, so most of us found moments to change. At the last performance, there was a lot of "Can I take your picture?" stuff backstage, and also I always looked at my script before going on. So this night, I forgot to change (...) At the end of the show, Steve said, "Nice shoe bit. Did the heel break?" I said no and told him what happened. Then I said, "But I got that lyric right," and Steve said, "Nope. But you were great," and gave me a hug. Then he said, "I should have given that note to you as an acting note. The reason Phyllis sings 'would,' not 'could,' is because she's sure of it — she knows it." And, as always, he was right.
For Full Interview
TSR: Was there a particular moment in Passion that was hardest to learn?
DM: "I Read." It was difficult to learn, only because I said to James and Steve that I have to act the SH*T out of this as well as sing the SH*T out of it, and it's impossible to do that in two days [for the final audition]. It's quite long, quite complex, and I said if I couldn't get lost in Fosca's world, I couldn't do it well. To really be lost, I really needed to know the song, so I postponed it.
(...)
There was also an interesting thing that happened with "Lucy and Jessie."
TSR: The ending?
DM: Exactly! The song was originally done without a vocal ending — it just went to dancing, never returning to the lyric "just fine." I didn't think a lot of about it. But as we rehearsed I thought it would be great to finish it vocally. Maybe I'd have felt differently if I was a dancer accustomed to all the time going into a big dancing thing and knowing that's what would send the song through the roof. But then I watched — more prep work — the [1985] concert version at Lincoln Center and noticed they added a little vocal thing at the end [for Lee Remick]. Now, it wasn't what we ultimately did, and it wasn't necessarily definitive, but I felt there was something satisfying about it. So I asked Casey [Nicholaw, the director] and Eric if we could do something like that, and they said they didn't think it would be a problem as Steve had obviously approved it before. But apparently Steve said no: It's a patter song, and he said you don't return to the same lyric in a patter song; it's a dance number.
TSR: So much for that idea.
DM: Initially the lyric ends with "I could tell you someone who would finally feel just fine." So we're doing the sitzprobe, and Steve says, "I have an idea for the end of the song. I'm watching you, and I think instead of singing, 'I could tell you someone who would finally feel …" it should be "I could tell you someone who would finally feel/I could tell you someone who would finally feel/I could you tell someone who would finally feel just fine." Someone who would finally feel. Doesn't matter what Phyllis feels so long as she feels it."
TSR: An acting moment as much as a singing moment.
DM: Wait! And then Steve said, "However, you're screwing up a lyric." He said, "It isn't 'I could tell you someone who could finally feel …' It's 'I could tell you someone who would finally feel just fine."
(...)
TSR: Really?
DM: Most of us changed into character shoes for "Who's That Woman?" because we wanted to wear our most glamorous four-and-a-half-inch heels with our gowns. But we couldn't dance in them, so most of us found moments to change. At the last performance, there was a lot of "Can I take your picture?" stuff backstage, and also I always looked at my script before going on. So this night, I forgot to change (...) At the end of the show, Steve said, "Nice shoe bit. Did the heel break?" I said no and told him what happened. Then I said, "But I got that lyric right," and Steve said, "Nope. But you were great," and gave me a hug. Then he said, "I should have given that note to you as an acting note. The reason Phyllis sings 'would,' not 'could,' is because she's sure of it — she knows it." And, as always, he was right.
For Full Interview
"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"
Updated On: 2/19/08 at 01:07 AM
