Hardest Role to play? — Page 2

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#26

re: Hardest Role to play?

Posted: 10/16/05 at 12:45pm

rose&lark --- Thanks for feeling my pain! Yeah, it's kinda like playing Jekyll/Hyde in all of six minutes after sitting around fairly calmly for an hour and a half beforehand. You really have to shake the rafters with it, and no matter how much you prep in advance, you still have to go out there and bide your time before the big scene. And, yes, it's an incredibly rewarding role, both acting and singing. I had no idea going into it that it would be THAT challenging as far as stamina, though. It's by no means the lead. I believe I was successful in it, and I did get very good notices (thankfully), but I was scared to death during the run that I wasn't going to make it to the end. I felt like such a wimp, until I talked it over with a former veteran of the show in New York. She helped put it in perspective for me. She said that the only ones who didn't peter out in the part were the ones that held back during the song. They lasted longer in the run, but weren't very effective. I chose to be "effective" but had to live with my choice every night.

"Jaws is the Citizen Kane of movies."

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#27

re: Hardest Role to play?

Posted: 10/16/05 at 1:47pm

Charlotte/Doug/every other character in I Am My Own Wife

I can't believe no one has said this yet. Not only is it challenging to truthfully portray over 40 characters, the actor must switch back and forth effortlessly, and you can't rely on anyone else to help you captivate the audience for 2+ hours. Not to mention the heck of a time any future performer will have, as it's only been done by one amazing performer for so long.

"I am concocting a seduction. I do not require a patissiere."-Boston Marriage

#28

re: Hardest Role to play?

Posted: 10/16/05 at 2:35pm

cathy and jaime from The Last Five Years

there's only two of them. the whole show depends on each actor. the emotions that they must go through are not easy, and the songs are very difficult to sing as well.

it may be harder for cathy because she has to go backwards!!

#29

re: Hardest Role to play?

Posted: 10/16/05 at 2:36pm

Glad you chose to be effective, Best12Bars! Your performance most likely benefitted from that conscious choice of yours!

Q: What is the most weirdest or funniest thing a fan has asked you? Joe Flanigan, Stargate Atlantis: When a fan asked me for help with his grammar. I'm available.

#30

re: Hardest Role to play?

Posted: 10/16/05 at 2:44pm

I agree with beest12bars. I was in 1776 last year at my high school and the entire show was incredibly difficult. Almost everyone is on stage for the majority of the first act (at least the way that we were staged) and there were long periods of people being frozen and long periods of only dialogue which drag very easily. Rutledge is an insane part and incredibly scary if done correctly. I don't know how anyone can pull that out after doing so little for such a long time over the course of the show.

Whatever happened to class?

#31

re: Hardest Role to play?

Posted: 10/16/05 at 3:02pm

The hardest role I ever had was Harry Roat in WAIT UNTIL DARK. I was up to the demands of the part, but I had a director who'd played the part 10 years earlier and insisted that I do everything the way he did it. It was terrible trying to fit into his mold--especially when I hadn't seen his performance.

"Long live God!" (GODSPELL)

Updated On: 10/16/05 at 03:02 PM

#32

re: Hardest Role to play?

Posted: 10/16/05 at 3:26pm

Anything is Grease

Just kidding...

Kim in Miss Saigon. It takes a lot to be able to portray what she's feeling because not many have exerienced what she has.

Megan Mullally as Karen Walker on Will and Grace: "Tell me more. Tell me more. Like does he have a car?"

#33

re: Hardest Role to play?

Posted: 10/16/05 at 4:27pm

Shoot there are so many

Male ROles
Sam (The Normal Heart)
The Phantom....it my not seem like it but it I bet it is
The Beast (Beauty and The Beast)...the costume alone
Colehouse Walker Jr. (Ragtime)....you've gotta be good to do this
Sweeney Todd
George (Sunday In The Park With George)
Jean Valjean (Les Miserables)
Dr. Jekyll (Jekyll and Hyde)

FEMALE
Elphaba (Wicked)
Glinda( Wicked)
Momma Rose (Gypsy)
Effie (Dreamgirls)
Kim (Miss Saigon)
Christine (The Phantom of The Opera)

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#34

re: Hardest Role to play?

Posted: 10/16/05 at 4:37pm

Pretty much any role in "In My Life"
Truly, how difficult must it be for those poor people to have to make sense of such nonsense! It's a different kind of difficulty, but in many ways harder.

After all, the great roles in the great shows, while draining to perform, are very rewarding.

#35

re: Hardest Role to play?

Posted: 10/16/05 at 8:11pm

Sweeney HAS to be draining, Even more so if you have to be tootin' on a Tuba or such. Equus is no cake walk either, and of course there is Virgina Woolf and Streetcar. Doing Les Mis must have been a big drain, But I saw it years ago with the OBC before they trimmed it. How the hell do you trim a piece like that anyway? That is the first thing I ask before taking a part in "Shakespeare" productions, Over zealous directors have left so much out so many times, So I ask to see their run script before I say yes. By the way, For as many times as I have done it, "The Scottish Play" is a very draining show - emotional subject matter but worth a good rendition.

"It is bad enough that people are dying of AIDS, but no one should die of ignorance." - Elizabeth Taylor

#36

re: Hardest Role to play?

Posted: 10/16/05 at 8:34pm

Everyone has been citing obviously difficult leading roles so far. While Mama Rose is indeed a strenuous role to play, everything you need is there in the writing. I think it is actually more difficult, in some ways, to play Louise/Gypsy. You have to create a character out of what Louise doesn't say, or what she would like to say but she keeps repressing. Then you have to pull off a stunning transformation near the end without losing the character's vulnerability. I have rarely seen a good, convincing performance in this role--everyone seems to be content to play Louise as a sickening ingenue, and Gypsy as a strident bitch, without connecting the two in the least.

I ask in all honesty/What would life be?/Without a song and a dance, what are we?/So I say "Thank you for the music/For giving it to me."

#37

re: Hardest Role to play?

Posted: 10/16/05 at 8:43pm

signora fosca in Passion, just so much going on and what she must go through and how she feels about her sickness and uncontrolled love as she suddenly slips away and theres obviously a lot of ways to portray this as those who have seen the dvd or concert staging of

#38

re: Hardest Role to play?

Posted: 10/16/05 at 8:57pm

****Henrik in "A Little Night Music."****

Glad to see this one mentioned. Does not get nearly enough credit. It is an extremely difficult role.

I'll do the females first. Men later

"Rose" in "Gypsy" - This is a very difficult role to play. Merman created the role and Angela perfected it.

"Desiree" in "A Little Night Music" - It is one of those roles that doesn't seem too difficult and then you see Judi Dench play the part and you realize all that it could be!!

"Marie Christine" in "Marie Christine" - I don't know where Audra got that performance from. BRILLIANT!!

"Mrs Lovett" in "Sweeney Todd" - A much more difficult role than "Sweeney". Her character has a lot more to do and has genuine chances to shine or sink on stage.

"Kim" in "Miss Saigon" - Simply for the amount of time she is on stage and the emotional range the role requires.

"Fosca" in 'Passion" This role has to be draining! I can't imagine what it must take an actress to "go there" night after night.

"The Bakers Wife" in "Into the Woods" say what you will, I have always said this role, if played right, can have an audience on its feet night after night as was the case with Joanna Gleason.

"One difference between poetry and lyrics is that lyrics sort of fade into the background. They fade on the page and live on the stage when set to music". - Stephen Sondheim

#39

re: Hardest Role to play?

Posted: 10/16/05 at 9:09pm

I don't think the Baker's Wife is as complex as The Witch, although she has to work throughout the whole show slowly but surely so that the point in which she sleeps with Cinderella's Prince does not come out of the blue as unbelievable, I think this moment in the show solely depends on the actress doing the Baker's Wife.
I disagree with the person that said playing Momma Rose is not that hard because everything is in the libretto. I think Sondheim and Laurents incorporated a lot of subtext to this role, look at all the women who've played it, and look at all they've brought to the role. I've only seen Roz, Bette Midler, and the always fabulous Peters, and they all play it so differently.
I definitely agree about Fosca though, what a hard role to play! Probably one of Sondheim's most complicated roles.
Of the Rodgers & Hammerstein's characters I think Nellie in South Pacific is a very complex and difficult role as well as the King from the King and I, especially because most people tend to play it as Yul Brynner.
Of Kander and Ebb's shows, I agree with the person that said Sally Bowles, but I think the MC is also a very complex role and hard to play, especially since some people don't quite know whether to play him as a victim or as Hitler. Some people seem to disagree with me but I actually think Roxie Hart is a hard role to play, not only for the dancing, singing, acting involved but also because she has to manipulate the audience and appear to be vulnerable.

"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"

#40

re: Hardest Role to play?

Posted: 10/16/05 at 9:36pm

I think it would be psychologically difficult to be Iago, George, Robert in Company, Blanche, Billy Bigelow, Mama Rose*, Hamlet*, many of the roles in Follies*, or any role in a one person or two person show.*

I think it would be physically difficult to play Valjean, Charity, Floyd Collins, Eva Peron, Effie White, Fanny Brice, Che Guevara, and those with a asterix marked next to them. (Not to say that these roles aren't psychologically difficult, but not as much as those above)

However, I think if you'd not completely exauhsted at the end of a show and you're the star, I don't think you're working hard enough. every role on broadway should be difficult.

#41

re: Hardest Role to play?

Posted: 10/16/05 at 9:38pm

I saw Zoe Caldwell talk about timing in a play and she was so perfect as she talked about the words & punctuation the writer puts in, It's all right there. What a great Lady & Actress she is. I believe she mentioned it when someone was talking about the timing being off a bit for "Master Class" - Now there's another role that has to drain one show after show.

"It is bad enough that people are dying of AIDS, but no one should die of ignorance." - Elizabeth Taylor

#42

re: Hardest Role to play?

Posted: 10/17/05 at 1:11am

"You could ask this question to 100 people and get 100 different answers. "

Well, it's not that interesting if everyone answered it with the same answer, isn't it?

"Hey, you! You're the worst thing to happen to musical theatre since Andrew Lloyd Webber!" -Family Guy

#43

re: Hardest Role to play?

Posted: 10/17/05 at 10:36am

Musical: Mama Rose in "Gypsy"

Non-Musical: Ned Weeks in "The Normal Heart"

#44

re: Hardest Role to play?

Posted: 10/17/05 at 10:36am

Musical: Mama Rose in "Gypsy"

Non-Musical: Ned Weeks in "The Normal Heart"

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