Fiddler and Harvey- Page 2

[Corine2]

Posted: 4/16/05 at 11:10pm

Safe Sex?
Guess I missed that.
But he is the best PAPA and Mama.

As long as your not Boris.

[Sheri]

Posted: 4/16/05 at 11:11pm

I saw Harvey in Fiddler in January and really enjoyed his warm potrayal. I thought he gave the character a lot of heart.

[melissa errico fan]

Posted: 4/16/05 at 11:13pm

SAFE SEX was a play Harvey wrote and starred in in 1987. I saw it while it was in previews. I was a senior in high school at the time and had loved Harvey in TORCH SONG TRILOGY. All I can say is that it was one of the worst things I've ever seen in my life. I can barely even remember what it was about; it was done in vignettes, if I remember correctly. Maybe Margo can help me out in that department. It closed after a week, I believe.

[Corine2]

Posted: 4/16/05 at 11:15pm

I saw Harvey in Torch Song. It was one of the greatest nights of theater I have ever seen.
But Edna was even better.
He is a funny man, and an even funnier Diva.
Love him.
I admire him so much.

[melissa errico fan]

Posted: 4/16/05 at 11:16pm

TORCH SONG TRILOGY is such a beautiful play. Harvey and Estelle were beyond brilliant in it. I also loved the movie, which is terribly underrated.

[Corine2]

Posted: 4/16/05 at 11:24pm

Bunny.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/16/05 at 11:27pm

I read "Safe Sex" when it was published, but didn't get a chance to see it (it only ran a week). It was an evening of one acts dealing with how AIDS and safe sex was affecting the lives a group of characters, straight and gay. It read well, as I recall, but apparently there were problems with the Broadway production. Fierstein and others have suggested that it was ahead of its time and said some rather controversial, but prescient things about the impact that AIDS was having and would continue to have on people around the world and for that it was rejected by critics and audiences at the time. I don't know -- I've never seen it performed.

Updated On: 4/16/05 at 11:27 PM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 4/16/05 at 11:31pm

I agree with Rath.

I found Harvey Fierstein's Tevye extremely human, funny and moving, particularly his second-act farewell scenes with his daughters. Harvey played the disowning of the daughter who is marrying out of the religion with with an awareness of the torment felt by parents who disown their lesbian and gay children. He loves her just as he always has, but all of the received ideas in his body tell him she has done something "bad."

He and Andrea Martin were wondeful together in the Frume Sarah nightmare scene and "Do You Love Me?"

He is one of the great theatrical presences of our generation and he and this part are a perfect match.

WishIHada Tony--you're off base here.

Updated On: 4/17/05 at 11:31 PM

[DAME]

Posted: 4/17/05 at 5:26am

Paljoey,
WishIhadatony has been off base in everything he has posted.

[DAME]

Posted: 4/17/05 at 5:41am

Oh.. and I was fortunate to see the last performance of Safe ex on broadway. The first act exists as a hbo movie with Harvey and Stockard Channing.

[stylinbohemian]

Posted: 4/17/05 at 10:54am

wow you guys are great now I can't wait even more to see it! And I may be able to give my friends that are going a better attitude about Harvey~! Thanks soooo much! You guys rock!

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 4/17/05 at 12:26pm

I think he was a fabulous Tevye and it would be hard to top him. Enjoy it!

[BobbyBubby]

Posted: 4/17/05 at 12:33pm

stylin,
Don't listen to what one person on this post said, Harvey is great, and I doubt this trasher of Harvey even saw him in the role. The only bad things I have heard about Harvey's performance are from people who have not seen him in the role,and are making naive judgements. Enjoy!

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 4/17/05 at 12:49pm

Hmmmm, Wishihadatony seems very quiet now.

Thanks Marc for piping in. I thought it was extremly rude for Wishihadatony to post things about you that he doesn't even know are true.

[DAME]

Posted: 4/17/05 at 1:37pm

I thought it was more than rude. I mean he blatantly lied.

[Theatreboy33]

Posted: 4/17/05 at 2:58pm

I enjoyed Harvey quite a bit. I forgot who said it, but some comic once said "If you can make them laugh, you can make 'em cry that much more"...or something like that. Harvey does that. His humor is so exhuberant that when he breaks down while talking to God, I was right there with him. Something Molina never accomplished. But what i want to know is why the hell isnt Mandy Patinkin being offered the role once Harvey leaves. He's said in interviews that he'd do it if asked. He'd be brilliant, IMHO.

[cathywellerstein]

Posted: 4/17/05 at 3:01pm

i saw harvey in fiddler in january and i thought he did a great job. yes, his singing wasn't the most beautiful thing to listen to, but he worked around it. i agree that he did make the part very real, and he fit the character of tevye very well.

[DAME]

Posted: 4/17/05 at 4:02pm

I'm wondering besides Harvey and reba; what other replacements have had better reviews than the person they were taking over for? hmm.. time for a little research.

[melissa errico fan]

Posted: 4/17/05 at 4:07pm

Anne Heche's reviews weren't better than Mary-Louise's, but she did get raves when she did PROOF.

[DAME]

Posted: 4/17/05 at 4:08pm

Thats a great example. Also.. Faith prince got great notices when she replaceed Donna Murphy in King and I.

[sanda]

Posted: 4/18/05 at 8:22pm

Harvey got negtive review from Brantely.

I am not a fan of Brantly. Brantely gave negtive review to Molina as well. But Brently hold the same standard for both actors which makes me respect him. That is why I called Broadway.com's review unfair and unjustise but not Brantely's.

If you praise Harvey's performance hightly and totally ignore the fact that he simply missed the notes, I called it unjustice. It is so apparent, only a deaf cannot tell it. Looked at the people who praise Harvry here, even they said he did not have a beautiful voice. I tell you, it is not he doesn't have a beautiful voice. Mostel doesn't have a beautiful voice either. But don't use this to compare Harvey with Mostel. Mostel can hit the notes and make the song. Harvey cannot. Tevye's songs are such beautiful songs, you cannot allow a person who missed the notes so apprarently and still call that it is delivered wonderfully.

And I am not the only one in this board who dislike Harvey's Tevye. Take a simple search and you will find a lot discussion before.

[ShuQ]

Posted: 4/18/05 at 8:25pm

I know if I were a critic in NY and wanted to keep my job and reputation, I wouldn't say something bad about Harvey Fierstein...atleast not at this point in his career.

[Sporkie]

Posted: 4/18/05 at 8:28pm

Wow, this is getting sort of vicious...I personally like Harvey, but that's not the point. The point is Chill. Seriously

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/18/05 at 8:30pm

Brantley's review of Fierstein -- the worst you could call it is MIXED, not NEGATIVE, and it's mostly positive:

"Led by the somnambulistic Mr. Molina, and a bizarrely chic Randy Graff as Tevye's wife, Golde, Mr. Leveaux's interpretation sometimes barely had a pulse.

That omission has been remedied to some extent by Mr. Molina's new replacement. Even at his quietest, Mr. Fierstein, who won a Tony Award for 'Hairspray,' has the presence of a waking volcano. And lest anyone think he needs drag to be big, let it be noted that he wears Tevye's tattered trousers with a homey and winning ease. To see the gray-bearded, bright-eyed Mr. Fierstein pulling a horseless milk cart with sardonic resignation is, you may well think, to look upon the image of the Tevye of the Sholem Aleichem stories that inspired the show.

It is Mr. Fierstein's greatest asset as a performer, that unmistakable voice, that perversely shatters this illusion. Theatergoers who saw -- or more to the point heard -- this actor in 'Hairspray' will require at least 10 minutes to banish echoes of Edna. But even audience members unfamiliar with Mr. Fierstein may find him a slightly jarring presence.

Tevye must to some degree be an everyman, albeit in exaggerated, crowd-pleasing form. And Mr. Fierstein, bless him, shakes off any semblance of ordinariness as soon as he opens his mouth. Every phrase he speaks or sings, as he shifts uncannily among registers, becomes an event. And the effect is rather as if Ms. Channing were playing one of Rodgers and Hammerstein's simple, all-American heroines in 'Oklahoma!' or 'Carousel.'

A master of droll comic melodramas in fringe theater long before he became a Broadway star with his 'Torch Song Trilogy' in 1982, Mr. Fierstein inflects every line with at least a touch of the grandeur of old Hollywood movies, whether he's being husky with sentimentality, smoky with regret or growly with displeasure.

This can be quite a bit of fun. Tevye's first solo, 'If I Were a Rich Man,' takes on a fascinating new life, as Mr. Fierstein slides and rasps through its wordless connecting phrases. But it is sometimes hard to credit this exotic spirit as that of a tradition-bound father who has trouble making the adjustment to changing times.

As for the show's new Tevye, it would seem that this 'Fiddler' has gone from having too little of a personality at its center to having too much of one.

Still, as Tevye himself might argue, better an overspiced feast than a famine."

[sanda]

Posted: 4/18/05 at 8:33pm

wew, maybe my understanding of English is too bad.