Posted: 3/14/17 at 7:34pm
Cool but what happened to LAUREN ZAKARIAN?
Posted: 3/14/17 at 7:41pm
Nothing. Shoba and Lauren both cover a Natasha. Shoba did a few of the performances while Denee Benton was on vacation and Lauren did the rest.
Posted: 3/30/17 at 7:57am
Shoba was on for Natasha last night. This was my second time seeing the show, having seen Denee in the role back in November. I thought Shoba had a really beautiful voice and indeed powerful voice when needed, and played the role younger than Denee. There was a certain innocence and sweetness that changed the way I had previously thought of Natasha, not in a bad way but just a different dimension.
Posted: 3/30/17 at 8:59am
Yeah, I saw her when she played it a couple weeks ago and was struck by how young she came across, which made me see Natasha in a different way than I have in the past. I thought she did a great job.
Posted: 6/28/17 at 4:35am
She was on last night as Natasha again. I think her voice was stronger than Denee's in the sense that she didn't seem to struggle with any of the singing or hitting any of the notes. But it was a very... capable musical theater kind of a voice. The kind of voice you'd expect any credible soprano with training to have, though I did find her more belty and shouty than legit soprano.
Increasing representation is great but I just found her alright in the role and I think having her play Natasha exposed weaknesses in that character, both ones likely found in the source material as well as in the way Malloy has adapted the character for the stage. It made me really appreciate how much Denee deserved that Tony nomination. Like many of the other actors in the show, Denee brings so much more to the character than just what's on the page (which I think is intentionally simple enough for you to follow it as well as getting something extra if you're familiar with that style of novel or with War & Peace itself). Because Denee has so much charisma and plays the character as so high energy and dynamic, even though I didn't entirely empathize with her portrayal either, I at least understood it. You see how emotion drives her and you understand why she makes the decisions that she makes even when they're detrimental. But with Shoba Natasha is less sympathetic because the performance is more natural and ordinary. And I don't know if Natasha can be played like any other girl. It threw off the balance of the show as well with all the other actors who have been playing these parts from the beginning of the Broadway run coming across as so much stronger than her. They seemed to be playing their parts around her instead of exchanging energy with her. I thought it was most notable with Charming, Sonya Alone, and some of the scenes with Lucas. Those actors would have given the same performances whether she'd been present or not.
I think she's very beautiful and capable as a singer and actress but this isn't the right role for her to show her strengths.
Posted: 6/28/17 at 5:29am
The show recently posted a video of Shoba singing 'No One Else' at an event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpFioX8-qK0. The performance seems a bit pitchy to me, but then I am mainly judging against the cast albums' versions, for which the singers would have had the luxury of multiple takes.
nolanativeny said: "I thought Shoba ...played the role younger than Denee. There was a certain innocence and sweetness that changed the way I had previously thought of Natasha, not in a bad way but just a different dimension."
I do wonder how the part would come across if they cast someone who had a really youthful-sounding voice. I'm thinking of somebody who sounds about as young as Keaton Whittaker does in this 'Carrie' video; I think she was about Natasha's age, 16 or 17, when this was recorded. Having that kind of voice singing 'No One Else' might make the song seem a bit absurd, but maybe that would actually work within the show as a whole, because Natasha would very clearly come across as too young to handle the situation she's in. Hmm, mixed feelings.
Posted: 6/28/17 at 1:16pm
I am reading the novel now, and it seems to me that Natasha, a sixteen year old debutante who is quirky and artistic and immediately fascinates everyone she encounters, borders on being a manic pixie dream girl archetype. (If Tolstoy was female, we'd be calling her a MARY SUE.) You see a more rounded character with Denee; Shoba, equally valid, is more of the novel's MPDG.
Posted: 6/28/17 at 1:58pm
I don't think Natasha is a MPDG because at least in the musical, even though Pierre is a notable presence, it's not until Act 2 that we really see Natasha primarily through his eyes. For the rest of the story, she's her own character. I would compare her more to someone like Catherine (Kitty) Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. She is definitely a literary type from a certain period down to the way she keeps reiterating that certainly she wouldn't be feeling that way, they wouldn't have kissed, she wouldn't have his letter, etc. unless she loved him. There's a thinking in the show that's markedly different (because it is entrenched in the period) from how just any character from any time period would think. There are other sort of flighty, excitable characters I could name but they spend their books growing up quickly or having their spirits crushed because, you know, 18th/19th century. But to take up the MPDG thing, the reason I prefer Denee is she comes across more manic. I think Natasha should be almost as heightened as Marya and Anatole. Sonya and to a lesser extent Pierre are the ones who should be giving more natural and grounded performances. Maybe Mary too.
Posted: 6/29/17 at 2:12am
FYI: The last South Asian leading lady on Broadway was Anisha Nagarajan. She & Manu Narayan starred in ''Bombay Dreams'' (2004). Anisha's now doing Mira Nair's ''Monsoon Wedding'' (with Michael Maliakel and Kuhoo Verma, through July 16, at Berkeley Rep).
I wonder if Shoba Narayan and Manu Narayn are related.
Or is Narayan a common Indian surname?
Updated On: 6/29/17 at 02:12 AM
Posted: 6/29/17 at 7:27am
Narayan is an abbreviation of a longer and more unwieldy last name. It's probably a common abbreviation for a whole set of longer names.
