I never saw Douglas as Zaza on Broadway but I did see him in London 3 times and also John Barrowman. Harvey was good in his protrayal but I didn't think he had the details that Douglas brought to the role. Harvey was more warm and cosy with his audiences, but for me, Douglas or even John's Zaza is not about wanting the audiences to like them, but to show the problems Albin faces behind Zaza.
I liked Harvey, I truly did. I was surprised how well his voice was and you can see he had a lot of work done to train up his voice. But I was still unimpressed how much of the tunes are lost from his singing. My friend went along with me and he has never heard of the score and whenever Harvey sings, he losts all sense of lyric or tune and is tempted to fall asleep.
I saw Chris Noth as Georges and he was fantastic. Very charming, very loving and believable as Harvey's partner. As for the rest of the cast, they're all good and of course the Cagelles were brilliant too. I'm not sure if this was because it's on Broadway or I haven't seen the show for too long, even though the Cagelles are still quite manly compared to the OBC, they're relatively more feminine than any of the Cagelles I've seen in London.
I was kinda sad to see the show not selling as well as it should. Maybe there's no 'star' to drag people in. It's a heart-warming production and I love it very much, so I hope people can continue to go watch it.
All That Jazz
Check out & support my drawings @ www.facebook.com/felixdrawings