LuPone's lead-in to Rose's Turn - is this really how she was??? — Page 2

"You have a clear preference and find one way of working superior."

But only from an actor's POV.

The thing about changing up a performance each time is that we wouldn't know it was happening from an audience's POV, unless we had seen the show multiple times. Otherwise, there's no frame of reference.

The "spontaneity" is apparent for the audience either way, because you arrive at the same result.

But from an actor's POV, I personally think it's harder (my opinion!) to appear to be spontaneous when you're not than it is to actually be spontaneous by doing something new.

It isn't necessarily "superior" (your word, Reg), it's just more "challenging" (my original choice of word).

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I get why Patti LuPone is considered great. I actually think she is great, and a complete legend through and through. But I don't really like her on video or recordings (the above youtube clip is almost laughable). I find there to be no texture or contour to her voice (just not my taste). She falls into "I only like her Live" categories for me. I would never buy a recording. However, I saw her in Gypsy, and the performance devastated me for a week. By far, one of the most personally affecting performances I have ever witnessed (alas--never saw any of the other stage Roses though)

Updated On: 6/21/11 at 11:37 AM

The result is the exactly same, Reg. A seemingly spontaneous performance. It's the approach that I was referring to. Not superior at all, but more challenging for an actor.

Aside from spontaneity ...

Here's the crappy Tyne clip on YouTube, as well, which doesn't do her justice either. Like the Patti clip. (See? I'm playing "Dueling Roses" again. Why do I do it?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJM6nNMXJlc

The main difference I think is that I have always preferred the "excess within control" approach to acting. You want to push the emotions as far as you can within the the character and the situation, but never let completely go, free-falling.

Even if the character is batsh*t out-of-control in a scene, the actor isn't. I have always found this more powerful to watch. (Think about Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs) Just as I have always found it more powerful to watch an actor fighting back tears than actually bawling uncontrollably. The minute they cross the line and lose it, it weakens the intensity. Struggling with tears is always "better drama" than opening up the floodgates. (My opinion!!!!)

With Tyne, I saw a "real" Rose. She was not Godzilla, Mother Ham, Medea, or Lady Macbeth. She was Rose Hovic, fighting hard for her kids and for her own dream. Her performance was, at times, conversational and subtle, as if you were sitting in a room with her. She drew you in and was charming. But she was also fierce and bowled over you like a steamroller when provoked. And always electrifying to watch, particularly considering her limitations as a singer. She still managed to be pure "musical theatre."

With Patti, I see (in this and other clips) someone trying so intently to wring every single emotion possible out of every single word and note. As I said earlier, jokingly, it's the "most acting" I've ever seen from anyone playing Rose.

I didn't see her live, either once or multiple times, so I leave my opinion at that. Cancel it out, if you want to. And I don't dispute those who did see her live.

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Ugh! True! But this is the exact reason why I won't watch American Idol and never have. I think competition is fine, good, and healthy in many areas from business to sports to politics.

I've always hated it where "art" is concerned, though. Yet I do it myself, try as I might to avoid it. It's human nature, I know.

I still won't watch any competitive singing or dancing shows, though. It only encourages me to reduce those art forms to "technical" sporting events.

And when presented with two Roses ... I gotta pick one, I guess. What the hell's wrong with having a bouquet?

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Updated On: 6/21/11 at 12:24 PM

Of course! And that's what makes differences of opinion.


PLAYING DEVIL'S ADVOCATE: It's more "dangerous" to do something different each time, because you never know if you'll fall on your as$ doing it. It's not "director approved" and "audience tested." Maybe it will work, maybe not.

But I don't find that more "challenging" for an actor. It's certainly riskier, though.

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Updated On: 6/21/11 at 12:38 PM

I feel the same way about the Oscars as I do about any award for "art."

It's not a fact that the winner is the "best." It's only a fact that the winner won the award for being the "best."

Since "best" is an opinion, not a fact, I see these awards exactly for what they are. A consensus of opinion, nothing more and nothing less.

I have (some but waning) respect for the Oscars because it's a peer award. It's not given by critics or fans. It's by a select group of people in the industry. Do things get political? Absolutely! Do I agree with their choices? Until the King's Speech won last year, I hadn't agreed with a Best Picture choice in almost a decade. Still I watch and enjoy it for what it is.

With competitive shows for singing and dancing, they usually reduce artistic opinions to technical prowess. They are rated on scales and judged for ability. Imagine legendary singers like Janis Joplin, Ella Fitzgerald, Tom Waits, Mama Cass, or Bob Dylan, going on a show to prove how well they can sing a country song as any indication of how good they are as a singer. It's disgusting to me and proves nothing.

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Updated On: 6/21/11 at 01:06 PM

"Anyway, Patti...yeah, dunno."

I've been scoffed at a few times for my Patti disdain. I just don't get her. It all seems so one note, and not a very interesting one, at that - and I think it's a shame she has to sing without the use of ALL the letters in the alphabet, like consonants.

I will say, however, that due to her I finally truly understand the concept of 'Sacred Cow'.

Saw her four times (thank god for a flu, going around, got three people's tickets) and was amazed by what different interpretation she got out of each line every time, still remember her saying "Here comes Mama" like it was Hide and Go Seek and being completely in awe. It seemed like everyone around felt the same way too. Taken out of context I understand it seems less than good, but c'est la vie, it was good when it was and frankly, that's all that matters.

And why does a fat joke in reference to LuPone come up every damn time? I'm sure it's possible you to dislike her without a shot at her appearance, just petty. Did you see her at the Tonys anyway? Her body's in pretty damn good shape, especially for 62.

Is it possible that both things can be true? That a person can not like Patti LuPone for a host or reasons and that it's also not a particularly informed opinion about a performance when one has only seen a poorly shot bootleg clip?

I mean, I've argued that I don't have to actually eat a poop sandwich to know I'm not going to like the taste, or The Frank Wildhorn Metaphor, if you will. There are any number of things I won't put myself through. But it's hard for me to put forth an informed critique based on a random unprofessionally produced segment of something.

The only time I can think of when I have forced myself to see something I have previously hated was The Normal Heart. I hated the play when I read it, I dislike the notion of Kramer's anti-pleasure biases and glass-mostly-empty-and-cracked worldview morphing into The Official History of The AIDS Epidemic. For this reason, I was not moved to see the Off-Broadway revival. But once Wolfe and Mantello were involved in the current revival I made myself go see it, because I trust them as artists in ways I don't trust Larry Kramer. (And also, that people who's tastes I trust were raving about it even if most of them did not go see the Angels in America revival for reasons I simply can NOT fathom which is basically a crime if you ask me a CRIME ahem, but I got off track here, um... back to my post...)

And I saw how being in the theater, in the presence of those actors putting together that performance, with the choices that director made, afforded me the opportunity to see things that were never foregrounded in my previous encounters with the text. [For the record, I appreciated the technical work Ellen Barkin did but since the most odious of Kramer's pronouncements spring from her character's mouth, I was unable to be swayed by it.]

I can tell you why I loved that ensemble and that experience because I was there. But if you had a shaking cellphone video of Mantello saying to Barkin, "Some docs say condoms may offer protection..." and Barkin vigorously shaking her head no and informing him that they're no help, well, I would have written off the whole thing as quickly as Q did when he called Patti's intro "ridiculous." That would be my right, in a free society. But there would have been a lot of missing pieces.

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Updated On: 6/21/11 at 03:19 PM

Valid point, Namo.

Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

gives - that's cool - not my style at all, though. Really.

But, Q, as you can see from this very thread, liking LuPone is questioned all the time!

A friend of mine thinks that the theme song of Patti's fans should be a slightly adapted version of "I Like Him" from Man of La Mancha.

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