I attended this evening's performance and I couldn't agree more with this:
That being said, Karen's understudy, Yanira Marin, was truly awful, and it made me appreciate Karen's Anita even more (I would not have voted for her to win the Tony Award). While it is a fact that Karen cannot dance the role, Yanira cannot dance, act or sing the role! "America" was even more lackluster than I had remembered it, and one of the girls even stepped out of formation for a split second. The audience of mostly tourists didn't seem to care though, and still went crazy after the number was over. "A Boy Like That" was horrendous. Yanira was pretty much yelling the song, and it just didn't work at all. Also, the rape scene did not pack a punch like when Karen is acting in it. Yanira screamed her songs, yet could not let out any blood curling screams during the rape scene...I was so disappointed. She was simply atrocious, and did as WAT said in his post: Screamed "America", was pitchy and all over the place during "A Boy Like That" and the rape scene has next to no emotion whatsoever. My friend and I had gotten standing room and just stood there in shock and couldn't believe what we had just witnessed during the usually fabulously done number. Early on when we had been looking into partial view balcony seats, I asked if Karen was out, could we get our money back to which the box office woman cut me off mid-sentence and told me "I sell the performance, not the performer." Despite my dislike of the understudy, the rest of the people in audience seemed to like her and gave her a decent amount of applause come curtain call.
I love Haley Carlucci as Maria and she was truly the shining moment in a really lackluster performance of understudies! John Arthur Greene was really bland and seemed to have next to no personality which Cody gives to the character, plus his vocals and acting were sub par compared to Cody.
Manuel Santos added a lot more anger to Chino as apposed to how Joey Haro portrays him which was actually kind of refreshing to see.
Overall, I still love the show and Haley and Matt (despite his acting looking like a crazed caveman, tonight) really made up for the atrociousness of the Anita understudy. I really hope Karen is resting up to make a fierce return to the Palace soon!
"Anybody that goes to the theater, I think we’re all misfits, so we ended up on stage or in the audience.” --- Patti LuPone.
understudies on, I'd be pretty pissed off.
