Glenn Close in ALNM?
Glenn Close in ALNM?
wiggum2
Broadway Star Joined: 9/21/03
#1Glenn Close in ALNM?
Posted: 6/23/13 at 8:08pmWasn't Glenn supposed to star in ALMN in the mid 90s? Anyone know what happened? Would she be good as Desiree?
Gothampc
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/20/03
#2Glenn Close in ALNM?
Posted: 6/23/13 at 8:11pm
There was always a rumor that she would do the part, either on stage or in a tv special.
I don't think she would be good in the role. Desiree is supposed to be a European actress. Glenn Close is too midwestern USA. And I had the same problem with Bernadette Peters, she was too flora dora girl for the role.
If anyone ever tells you that you put too much Parmesan cheese on your pasta, stop talking to them. You don't need that kind of negativity in your life.
Updated On: 6/23/13 at 08:11 PM
americanboy99
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/27/06
AEA AGMA SM
Broadway Legend Joined: 8/13/09
henrikegerman
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/29/05
#4Glenn Close in ALNM?
Posted: 6/25/13 at 7:09pmGotham, are you serious? Glenn Close is about as East Coast as you can possibly get. (and AEA already beat me to it in terms of Marquise de Merteuil, her greatest screen role)
Gothampc
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/20/03
#5Glenn Close in ALNM?
Posted: 6/25/13 at 7:19pm
Sorry, I'm not a Glenn Close fan. (And for the record, I'm not that thrilled by Meryl Streep either.)
But I wouldn't cast Julie Andrews either and I think she's a wonderful actress.
I see Desiree as more of a Sophia Loren type. Beautiful and mysterious.
The whole point of naming her Desiree is that she has some allure.
If anyone ever tells you that you put too much Parmesan cheese on your pasta, stop talking to them. You don't need that kind of negativity in your life.
#6Glenn Close in ALNM?
Posted: 6/25/13 at 7:25pmI actually think Catherine Zeta-Jones fit the type the most out of the major Desirees. There are many lines about her being "ravishingly beautiful." With CZJ being a real European beauty, it was clear why everyone thought Desiree was so stunning. I would not call Close or Judi Dench "ravishingly beautiful"," but Dench had the acting chops to make up for that. Close probably would have as well.
Gothampc
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/20/03
#7Glenn Close in ALNM?
Posted: 6/25/13 at 7:28pm
"I actually think Catherine Zeta-Jones fit the type the most out of the major Desirees."
I thought CZJ was well cast, the best choice out of the available list of actresses. Her "Send in the Clowns" disappointed me a little bit, but I blame that on the director.
If anyone ever tells you that you put too much Parmesan cheese on your pasta, stop talking to them. You don't need that kind of negativity in your life.
#8Glenn Close in ALNM?
Posted: 6/25/13 at 7:33pm
She made me throw up in my mouth a little, repeatedly. all through the show, but maybe it was something I et.
And I still can't believe they turned that dinner party into a pic-a-nic.
#9Glenn Close in ALNM?
Posted: 6/25/13 at 7:37pm
Physically, Zeta-Jones is perfect for the role, but I thought most of her acting choices were strange. She didn't get any laughs out of "You Must Meet My Wife" and her "Send in the Clowns" was just blah.
Maybe with a better director she would have thrived. God knows she has the potential to be wonderful in the role.
#11Glenn Close in ALNM?
Posted: 6/25/13 at 11:31pm
I thought Zeta-Jones was magnetic on stage, I was very happy to see her take home the Tony, but the director and most things around the show seemed to be doing their best to make the show terrible. Imagine what Bartlett Sher could have done with that production and (some) of that cast, I honestly still think casting someone like Zeta-Jones opposite whatshisname as Fredrick was a terrible idea, Ramona Mallory was only good on paper, and well, I loved Leigh Ann Larkin in GYPSY but she was in an entirely different production than the rest of the cast.
Anyway, to go back to the topic, I adore Glenn Close and think she's awesome in period and contemporary roles. I also love her as Norma Desmond but somehow I can't get into her in Sondheim roles, she has yet to sing a Sondheim song in a way I find interesting, moving and/or well-sung; the only Sondheim role I'd love to see her play is the Witch, she'd be glorious, but for some reason I don't want to see her as Desiree.
"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"
#12Glenn Close in ALNM?
Posted: 6/25/13 at 11:34pmDesiree needs a warmth and vulnerability at her core, 2 things I think Glenn Close has lacked in every role she's played since Cherry Barnum and Mrs. Garp.
#13Glenn Close in ALNM?
Posted: 6/26/13 at 3:02pm
'Desiree needs a warmth and vulnerability at her core, 2 things I think Glenn Close has lacked in every role she's played since Cherry Barnum and Mrs. Garp.'
You obviously hasn't seen Albert Nobbs. Glenn Close is a Great actress, who could play any role.
Her rendition of Send in the Clowns is one of my favorite: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vufO2FZY6XQ
Gothampc
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/20/03
#14Glenn Close in ALNM?
Posted: 6/26/13 at 3:35pmWill42, that clip demonstrates exactly why she shouldn't play the role. She "acts" every single word. Julie Andrews fell into this trap with her singing where every word had to have a special punch to it. Rather than playing the character, I felt Glenn was treating the words like it was the holy word sent down from God Sondheim. To quote (or paraphrase) Ethel Merman: "Just sing the f'in song."
If anyone ever tells you that you put too much Parmesan cheese on your pasta, stop talking to them. You don't need that kind of negativity in your life.
#15Glenn Close in ALNM?
Posted: 6/26/13 at 3:42pm
I feel Glenn Close would've made a fine Desiree for a concert production or a run in some capacity, but not a definitive one, she lacks the sensuality and youthfulness beyond her age.
As long as we're discussing favourite Desirees, Hannah Waddingham (Trevor Nunn's first Desiree in London) has yet to be topped, as does that entire production in my mind (in the west end, god knows what happened before it opened on broadway).
#16Glenn Close in ALNM?
Posted: 6/26/13 at 6:00pm
"You obviously hasn't seen Albert Nobbs."
Au contraire, will42, her portrayal of Albert Nobbs was correct for that character-- no visible emotion, no breaching of the wall she's forced upon herself, a repression so deep she wouldn't know what an easy human interaction would even look like. Close's portrayal was perfectly correct, but all ice-cold intellect. She's incredibly skilled, no argument. She just doesn't let that sense of honest unfiltered HEART come through in anything I've seen her do.
#17Glenn Close in ALNM?
Posted: 6/27/13 at 2:15amGlenn is such a great actress, she can play "any role"! With that said CZJ, although I'm not a fan of hers, was absolutely perfection in ALNM on Broadway. Her performance at the Tonys was just not nearly as good as the performance she gave 8/week at the Walter Kerr Theatre.
"People have their opinions and that doesn't mean that their opinions are wrong or right. I just take it with a grain of salt because opinions are like as*holes, everyone has one".
-Felicia Finley-
#18Glenn Close in ALNM?
Posted: 6/27/13 at 2:48pm
"The whole point of naming her Desiree is that she has some allure."
I doubt she would have evinced all that much allure at the baptismal font.
I like Close when I like her ("Dangerous Liaisons") and don't when I don't ("Sunset Blvd."), but I could imagine her being a lovely Desiree back in the '90s.
#19Glenn Close in ALNM?
Posted: 6/27/13 at 2:55pm
Close's association with a Night Music revival dates back to the late nineties, and a Broadway revival directed by Trevor Nunn, was announced in 2004 for the 2006 season. Obviously, it never happened, and Nunn went on to direct the subsequent revival. See the link below.
Forbidden Broadway spoofed a potential Close-led Night Music around 2000, in a parody of "Buddy's Blues" called "Sondheim's Blues".
Speaking of actresses rumored to play Desiree, weren't both Emma Thompson and Elaine Paige, at one point or another, rumored for (separate) London productions?
Playbill link
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
Updated On: 6/27/13 at 02:55 PM
Musicaldudepeter
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/18/10
#20Glenn Close in ALNM?
Posted: 6/27/13 at 3:19pmWasn't Natasha Richardson supposed to play Desiree opposite her mother Vanessa Redgrave as Mme. Armfeldt? Richardson would have been perfect. They did a reading of it I think a few years before she passed away.
#21Glenn Close in ALNM?
Posted: 6/27/13 at 3:21pm^That reading was a fundraiser for Roundabout, and it took place exactly two months before Richardson's untimely death, not years. After Richardson's death, I believe, Redgrave stated that a full production had been in the works, presumably under the auspices of Roundabout.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
Musicaldudepeter
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/18/10
#22Glenn Close in ALNM?
Posted: 6/27/13 at 3:25pmWould have been a lovely production for sure. Richardson was ideal for that role.
#23Glenn Close in ALNM?
Posted: 6/27/13 at 3:29pm
Yes, I was at the concert, and it was a lovely evening. Richardson was quite good. She was never a singer, but she played the role with great humor and pathos. The entire cast of that evening (including Victor Garber, Christine Baranski, and Jill Paice) was pretty much across-the-board excellent.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
Updated On: 6/27/13 at 03:29 PM
#24Glenn Close in ALNM?
Posted: 6/27/13 at 3:35pmIf we had another Night Music production any time soon, I would hope Emma Thompson would be at the top of the list for Desiree.
"What can you expect from a bunch of seitan worshippers?" - Reginald Tresilian
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