Lane and Prince vs. Platt and Graham

[jamoca5]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 1:10am

The title's a misnomer- obviously there's no competition, but I just wanted to give my little spiel about things.

The recent revival of "Guys & Dolls" is the only production of that musical I have seen, and going into it, I didn't really have that much expectations. I didn't really have any previous knowledge about the show or its characters or how it's supposed to be staged or anything like that. I just knew that I was going to see a supposedly good musical.

I was less than impressed. But I figured that maybe it was because it was still in previews at the time, or maybe I was still slightly bitter about any show other than "Rent" being at the Nederlander, so I didn't pay it any mind. But when the reviews rolled around last week, I was not really surprised on the fact it got trashed, but how much it got trashed. And I noticed many reviews mentioned the contrast between this revival and the 1992 revival staring Nathan Lane and Faith Prince.

So, a few minutes ago, I just happened to come across a YouTube video of Lane and Prince performing Sue Me during the Tonight Show. Oh. My. Goodness. It was fantastic. So much better than what I saw on that Nederlander stage. Lauren Graham and (especially) Oliver Platt now seem so dull and bland in comparison. I had no idea what I was missing. So this is how it's supposed to be done! Who cast Graham and Platt as those two? And what were they on? Seriously, it's like they didn't even try.

I really needed to rant about that, because I'm just amazed at how much potential this production had, and they failed quite epically.

By the way, I also saw a video of SDYRTB. Why did they change the arrangement? It was fine the way it was (although Mary Testa interrupting it is very, very entertaining =D)

~Ash was here

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 1:13am

Platt is awful. Graham fares better but is certainly nothing great either.

Lane and Prince were simply perfection in their production.

"Sue Me" with Prince and Lane was extremely poignant and important. With Graham and Platt it was uninvolving and treated as a throwaway song.

I miss the 1992 revival. A lot.
Updated On: 3/8/09 at 01:13 AM

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 3:09am

Clearly, the winners are Maurice Hines and Alexandra Foucard.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 3:48am

No CLEARLY the winners are Blaine and Levene. If you can't beat em, don't even try to join em. (Although Walter Matthau must have been a hoot.)

Updated On: 3/8/09 at 03:48 AM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 8:35am

Faith and Nathan on the Tonight Show:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAkKPPsfZH0

[Ed_Mottershead]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 8:54am

Pal Joey, I clicked on the Sue Me link and was amazed at the difference between it and the current production. Ditto the link to SDYRTB. Is there any footage available of the original production?

[Smaxie]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 9:01am

Not to mention "Bushel and a Peck"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KrMDqTw1Bc&feature=related

[EponineAmneris]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 9:34am

Personally, I don't think anyone can measure up to Nathan as Nathan

[South Fl Marc]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 9:45am

Faith Prince was amazing.
I won't bother going to the recent revival.

[jv92]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 10:36am

The only words that came to my mind after reading the title of this thread:

Excellent vs. Awful

[esparza 333]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 10:51am

Nathan Lane and Faith Prince are genius in that clip. I really wish I was alive to have seen that revival. everything about it seem perfect. Speaking of which from all the photos and videos I have seen the costumes are stunning. I was so surprised to find out it was not nominated for costume design. Was this a shock at the time?

[Smaxie]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 11:08am

William Ivey Long unfortunately was competing against himself that year. He was nominated, and won for his costumes for Crazy for You, which were even more elaborate than his Guys and Dolls costumes.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 11:17am

South Fl Marc--I agree with you 100%---I won't be going to this revival for that reason--no one can compare at all to Lane and Prince in those roles (IMO).

[allofmylife]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 12:37pm

Here's the problem I have in situations like this (YMMV):

To say Nathan Lane was the "perfect" Nathan Detroit is a mistake. Nathan gave a superb performance, bringing great comic timing and a wonderful, rich voice and oodles of Nathan Lane to the number. And therein lies the problem. He larded it up so much with Nathan Lane that it became Nathan Detroit Lane. Now that make make a good name for a street just off Broadway, but let's face it, it is not really playing the part of Nathan Detroit.

Nathan is very much a Jimmy Savo style of performer (research, kids) - if you hire Nathan, you get Nathan Lane (and we LOVE him BTW) ie Nathan Lane Pseudolus, Nathan Max Lane Bialystok and even Nathan Oscar Madison Lane - as in all Lanes lead back to Nathan. He is a star. A huge, put-him-above-the-title-and-it-will-sell-out-star no doubt, but he has long ago stopped "playing roles" and in shows like this, he is playing Nathan.

Not that there is ANYTHING wrong in doing that.

The same goes for Faith Prince. Those little vocal ticks in the "Bushel and A Peck" number are fun, but they are Faith, not the character.

We have to remind ourselves not to get carried away by amazing personalities in lead roles and measure them against the originals, who usually played the role - not themselves playing a part - usually under the stern eye of the creators who wanted a character, not a star, turn onstage.

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 1:03pm

Faith certainly wasn't playing anything close to her Adelaide characterization in A CATERED AFFAIR.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 1:23pm

I simply meant that often the originator of a role is the performance to measure all others by because they have to get past the approval of the person who dreamed up the role.

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 1:24pm

I'm always shocked by Vivian Blaine's beauty, especially since I first saw her as an older woman, seeing her in photos of the original production of GUYS & DOLLS I'm always amazed by how stunning and sexy she was. Given my ignorance, I first thought that Krakowski was a bit of non-traditional casting (being used to the Faith Prince mold) and now I realize that in casting her they were going back to the Blaine mold.
The pictures of Blaine in "A Bushel and a Peck" (there's a bunch of fantastic pictures of the original production on ibdb.com) are fascinating, and seeing her with a robe, center stage, delivering "Adelaide's Lament" can't be described...and that's just a picture, how I envy those who got to see her deliver the number back in the days.
A pity that what we have now is Graham and Platt pooping all over the roles. I simply can't stand what I've seen Graham do with "Bushel and a Peck" (does she realize she has to be somewhat sexy or appealing? Who buys her as the headliner of a burlesque theatre?) and "Sue Me" (does her Adelaide suffer from a brain disorder that keeps her from walking right?) is just sacrilegious.

[Jon]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 1:31pm

The Walter Bobbie 1992 "SDYRTB" is not the original version, either. It has an extended gospel ending/encore.

The first production to do this was the all black cast revival in the 70's, with Ken Page as Nicely-Nicely.

[somethingwicked]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 1:35pm

allofmylife, I'll give you that you can argue Nathan Lane was playing "Nathan Detroit Lane," but Faith Prince's choices as Adelaide were very much specific to that character.

What other roles has she ever played where she is doing "vocal ticks" such as the ones she implemented in GUYS AND DOLLS?

Considering she'd only done two previous Broadway shows when she played Adelaide (a Tony-nominated feature as Tessie Tura in JEROME ROBBINS' BROADWAY and a supporting role in the short-lived NICK & NORA,) I don't see how you could have even identified enough of a "pattern" in her work to say she was playing herself.

Updated On: 3/8/09 at 01:35 PM

[allofmylife]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 2:47pm

I didn't say she was playing herself (or didn't mean to) I said (or meant to say) she wasn't playing Adelaide. Can you imagine what Frank Loesser would have said to her if she tried that vocal gimmick on "I Love You"? "Cute kid. Do it to my score again and you're fired." That is what I mean. Yodeling a z above c is not in the score, it was never the intention of of the creators. It's all Faith Prince. It makes you laugh, but a laugh wasn't put there by the authors. That's upstaging the composer.

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 2:54pm

The same goes for Faith Prince. Those little vocal ticks in the "Bushel and A Peck" number are fun, but they are Faith, not the character.

I might say they were the choice of the director, Jerry Zaks. But I wasn't in the rehearsal room. Neither were you.

They may have been a choice Zaks made or a choice Faith made.

If the Loesser's estate approved the production, which I'm sure they're thrilled they did, then it's up to them whether the revival would have been approved by its creators. Not you.

[blaxx]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 2:57pm

That is what I mean. Yodeling a z above c is not in the score, it was never the intention of of the creators. It's all Faith Prince. It makes you laugh, but a laugh wasn't put there by the authors. That's upstaging the composer.

No, love, it's called good acting. She understood the character perfectly and also made it her own. You are making it sound like Lane and Prince had their own interests ahead of the show or the part itself, which is not the case at all. Their choices worked perfectly within the production.

[mormonophobic]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 3:12pm

Wait, so Sue Me isn't supposed to be the number where we grow to hate the characters with a burning intensity? Huh. Could have sworn that was the intention after viewing the latest revival. Interesting to see I was wrong after watching Lane/Prince.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 4:54pm

Here's the problem with revivals again: when you add a joke to the show, when you add a gimmick, you are not doing the show a favor. Bushel and a Peck does very well without vocal gimicks, thank you very much. It is a brilliant pastiche on Burlesque shows of the period, carefully planned out be a masterful composer and a sharp, funny lyricist, both on the top of their game. To take away from the song with a vocal trick is to say to the composer "I can top you." That's why there are no Mel Torme riffs added to "My Time of Day". It's perfect, utterly perfect. No Broadway singer should dare to sing it as "Whoa-ho-ho-ho-ho My time of day is the dark time..."

The same goes with "Sue Me" where they added all sorts of pauses and that interminable held note. I just hate when people presume to know more than the originators.

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 3/8/09 at 5:12pm

I just hate when people presume to know more than the originators.

It appears that the only person here doing just that is you.