"I Don't Get It": Well-Liked Performers You Don't Enjoy- Page 8

[RippedMan]

Posted: 10/26/22 at 10:57pm

Tveit winning the Tony for "Moulin Rouge." I get that it wasn't normal times. He was fantastic vocally, but I've never seen a worse acting performance on Broadway. The show opened and it was electrifying... then he saunters on stage with zero energy and kills the mood. Then the ending, when Santine dies (spoiler?) and his reaction was so laughably bad and void of any true emotion. Awful. 

[Jarethan]

Posted: 10/26/22 at 11:17pm

joevitus said: "Jarethan said: "I do think Aaron Tveit is talented and very handsome. I feel he lacks charisma major.

I have never understood the Christine Ebersole love. I generally think she is bland, starting 1,000 years ago with Camelot, moving on to 42nd St. she won a Tony for that in a very dismal category. I did think she was good in Grey Gardens, but I thought Lupone walked away with War Paint.

I truly never have understood the Betty Buckley love. I don’t even like her voice.

I find Andrew Rannells one-note. I don’t even like looking at him because he looks too ‘plastic’ to me.

I hated it when Madelyn Kahn sang. Loved her in The Sisters Rosensweig and In the Boom Boom Room, to name two. Hated her in On the 20th Century and the One-Night performance of Anyone Can Whistle.

I also really didn’t like Karen Olive and was sorta happy when she said she was giving up Broadway.

I think Laurie Metcalf is usually an excellent actress, but I don’t understand the (many) people who think she has no equal. May be me…she just won an Emmy for Hacks and I thought she was terrible in the role…for me it was an embarrassing performance. I also didn’t like A Doll’s House Part 2…thought it was a great concept, but Cliff Notes rather than a fully developed play."

I will say this for Buckley: she's the rare singer on this list with a genuinely original voice. Hitting the notes isn't the beginning and the end of what should qualify one for Broadway stardom. She hits the notes, yes, but additionally she doesn't sound like anyone else. I'll grant there's almost something...metallic?...about the sound she produces--or produced in her heyday, anyway--but it's absolutely unique, so I get why some people would be crazy about her. Most of the people who've been listed here, though talented enough in a conventional sense, are just pretty bland. They don't represent anything special.

I'm on the fence about Patti. I'm not a big fan. Articulation is not her thing, and a lot of the roles she gets because she's a name, she's not well-suited too. On the other hand, she's probably the best Evita ever--she got the gutsy coarseness of the character, as Rice conceived it, in a way no one else ever has. And, like Buckley. she has a unique sound. These are two performers you'd never mistake for anyone else."

She may have a unique sound, but it is one that I find unpleasant.  I am not a Lupone crazy.  That said, I think she was GREAT in four roles that I can think of: Evita, Anything Goes (her best IMO and better than Foster, who was outstanding), Gypsy, and War Paint. IMO, she should have won the Tony that year, not Bette (who I love, but whose Dolly was just too low energy for me).  I think I like BO overall more than Lupone, but I do think Lupone has more great performances to show.  (And I didn’t even mention Fantine, because she never played it on this side of the pond).

[bwayphreak234]

Posted: 10/27/22 at 9:35am

Ben Platt and Neil Patrick Harris.

[@z5]

Posted: 10/27/22 at 9:41am

-Kristin Chenoweth

-Brian Darcy James

[dramamama611]

Posted: 10/27/22 at 9:57am

^ I agree with Cheno!   I find her gratingly annoying.

[Pro-1613605033]

Posted: 10/27/22 at 8:28pm

The Other One said: "Hugh Jackman and Marin Ireland.

The comment about Andrew Rannells seeming amazed by his own talent made me laugh out loud. Lord knows he is always “on” but somehow I still enjoy him."

Glad to see someone else say Hugh Jackman. I have never been a fan. 
Also, Laura Osnes. And that goes back to before the pandemic/antivax stuff. 
 

I have never understood the appeal of either 

[SouthernCakes]

Posted: 10/27/22 at 10:44pm

Jackman = bland

Platt = nepotism 

[another sloe eyed vamp]

Posted: 10/28/22 at 3:04pm

Anthony Newley. To be fair, I never saw him perform, but his singing is just painful.

And Ben Platt.