I wish I knew so many of you were there last night. I'd have loved to gush over Donna Murphy with all of you.
Thanks to everyone for their suggestions on getting tickets. I had seen Murphy from the third row the first week of July, so I ended up waiting to get discount tickets at the box office even though I couldn't choose my own seats. I still got two orchestra seats, row P for $198 total and was happy to avoid the extra charges.
I don't know what was going on in the theatre last night (maybe all the BWW-ers who were there?) but the audience erupted in sustained applause as soon as Donna made her fabulous entrance, and that seemed to set the tone for the entire performance, with Murphy simply firing on all cylinders and the entire cast similarly responding to the energy coming from the audience. It was theatre at its best, with the audience and the performers feeding off of each other. When I saw the show back in July I thought it was perfection. But that had nothing to do with wha was going on last night. Murphy's performance has gotten even stronger. She brings her signature Fosca-esque intensity to Dolly, an intensity wrapped in a warm, loose, joyful, electrifying performance. She, of course, sells all the big moments, but with Murphy it's all about the small moments, I teared up at the joyful look in her eyes when she succeeds at getting Cornelius and Barnaby to dance with Irene and Minnie. And watching her bask in the audience's love from the second she walks on stage with that fabulous red dress through the standing ovation she got from some in the orchestra will always be one of my most treasured theatre memories. I also loved the moment her dress got stuck in the last scene, the audience went wild when she went, completely in character, "we're all human." I was concerned about seeing the show a second time because the first was so great--I'm glad I returned. Last night was just out of the world.
"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"