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#51

Other Desert Cities Film Version

Posted: 4/28/12 at 1:13am

I'd love to see Diane Lane as Brooke. I'd really love to get this cast with talented, dynamic actors like Lane and Close who don't seem to get first crack at the A list parts anymore.

Ellen Barkin for Silda? Personally, I want Ellen Barkin in everything.
"The sexual energy between the mother and son really concerns me!"-random woman behind me at Next to Normal "I want to meet him after and bang him!"-random woman who exposed her breasts at Rock of Ages, referring to James Carpinello
#52

Other Desert Cities Film Version

Posted: 4/28/12 at 10:23am

Ellen Barkin would be wonderful, but I'd rather see someone older. Polly and Silda were mature women in the 60s. It's not that Barkin couldn't play the age. It's that there are few roles this good for women older than she is. And I know Light isn't much older than Barkin (she's only five years old), but Light's relative youth is exactly the reason I'd love to see someone like Olympia Dukakis or Lily Tomlin in the role. And I do think this would be better on hbo - they did a fairly good job with "Dinner with Friends," a similarly intimate play.
#54

Other Desert Cities Film Version

Posted: 4/28/12 at 11:13am

henrikegerman, you're actually slight off on the ages.

The script lists Polly as "late 50s or older," so she can be played by an actress in her 60s, but since Silda is her younger sister, she is listed as "late 40s to 50s." Barkin (who I think would be perfect casting for Silda) is 58, so she's toward the end of the age spectrum for the part.

It's hard to believe, but Stockard Channing is 68. Linda Lavin was 73 when she originated Silda two years ago, and I was told one of the things they wanted to do in recasting was to go with someone younger in order to emphasize the correct age difference between the sisters, which is one of the reasons they went with Judith Light, who is 63.
Tonya Pinkins: Then we had a "Lot's Wife" last June that was my personal favorite. I'm still trying to get them to let me sing it at some performance where we get to sing an excerpt that's gone.
Tony Kushner: You can sing it at my funeral.
#55

Other Desert Cities Film Version

Posted: 4/28/12 at 11:21am

*spoilers*

I'm not doubting that's what the published script says (I haven't read it), but I do think it makes more sense with slightly older actors. Polly and Silda's heyday as screenwriters were the late 60s/early 70s. If Silda was, let's say, 50 in 2004, when the play opens, that would make her 10 years old in 1964. Are we really to believe she started writing movies with Polly at 15 or so and her career was over before she was 20?
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe." -John Guare, Landscape of the Body
#57

Other Desert Cities Film Version

Posted: 4/28/12 at 12:21pm

Somethingwicked, the script may list Polly as possibly in her late 50s, but if she were that young in 2004, when the play takes place, and if she had been at least in her mid 30s when the backstory took place (as young as she could have possibly been at the time given she had by then had a fairly successful screenwriting career followed by parenting three children the oldest of whom was at least 16 at the time of the backstory), then the backstory would have happened at approximately 1980.

I got the impression the backstory happened much earlier, during the height of the youth counterculture in California. Isn't the period in question framed in reference to the hippies, Manson and Viet Nam?

Maybe my math is wrong or I'm failing to understand the reference points, but I assumed Polly would have been around 35 in the late 60s or early 70s.

Isn't Polly and Silda's writing career referenced as being in the 1960s. If Polly were in her late 50s in 2004, she would have been born around 1945 at the earliest. She and Silda's referenced 1960s writing career is followed by her having her oldest son roughy in 1965, at the very earliest, and probably at least a few years later. If he were born in 1965, that would make him only 15 in 1980. And isn't her back story meeting with Nancy Reagan well before Nancy became first lady?

If Silda were in her late 40s in 2004, she would have been born around 1957. How could a woman born in 1957 have been a working Hollywood screenwriter in the 1960s?

I have a similar issue with Violet Weston being in her mid 60s, as that script may also indicate. How could she be only in her 60s if she were a member of "the greatest generation?" That would mean she would have been born shortly after World War II, not been a member of the generation that won it.

Updated On: 4/28/12 at 12:21 PM

#58

Other Desert Cities Film Version

Posted: 4/28/12 at 3:27pm

Just for a point of reference, *I* am in my "late 50s" and the era of violent campus protests was pretty much over by the time I got to college. (Such protests tapered off rapidly once the draft ended for all functional purposes in 1972. Streaking became popular instead; then public drinking when the age of majority was lowered to 18 in 1973.)

My parents were children during WWII. If I'd had biological kids, they wouldn't have reached college until the 1990s.

So either ODC is a period piece, or the characters are older than Baitz supposed.
#59

Other Desert Cities Film Version

Posted: 4/28/12 at 3:52pm

I agree with the logic given about the practical factuality of the ages of the characters. I'm just going back to the script as the primary point of reference.

Back to the casting for the film, Jane Fonda is another actor I'd love to see have a go at Polly. She's such a natural survivor who has transformed herself so many times that I think she'd bring a real sense of gravitas to the material, particularly for a character whose personal reinvention is so crucial to her identity. I just saw the trailer for her new movie where she plays mother to Catherine Keener, and I couldn't help but think they'd be a terrific Polly and Brooke opposite one another.

Lest we forget that the most high profile of the forthcoming regional productions is the one in LA this November that Joe Mantello is directing for Center Theater Group. I imagine they're going to get as much of the original cast as possible to recreate their performances (Stockard Channing has specifically said in the press that she's dying to see how the piece plays to California audiences,) but if any of them wind up unavailable, there's potential for some seriously starry casting.
Tonya Pinkins: Then we had a "Lot's Wife" last June that was my personal favorite. I'm still trying to get them to let me sing it at some performance where we get to sing an excerpt that's gone.
Tony Kushner: You can sing it at my funeral.

Updated On: 4/28/12 at 03:52 PM

#60

Other Desert Cities Film Version

Posted: 4/29/12 at 9:21am

If Fonda plays Polly, Dunaway should play Silda. Actually, what I'd really like to see is Fonda and Dunaway in a remake of Baby Jane.
#61

Other Desert Cities Film Version

Posted: 4/29/12 at 9:42am

I would definitely be interested in seeing Fonda as Polly and Dunaway as either Polly or Silda. I agree that it will be interesting to see what direction the LA production goes, casting-wise. The whole age business is just one of the creakier aspects of a very good play that has more than a few logical impossibilities.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe." -John Guare, Landscape of the Body
#62

Other Desert Cities Film Version

Posted: 4/29/12 at 9:49am

I think Jane Fonda as Polly is the best casting suggested so far. I still want Bullock as Brooke and maybe even someone like Pacino for Lyman.
#63

Other Desert Cities Film Version

Posted: 4/29/12 at 11:12am

Bullock as Brooke would be great. I'd rather see someone more whitebread than Pacino as Lyman, who I've always thought of as being based on John Gavin, if Gavin had been known for westerns.
#64

Other Desert Cities Film Version

Posted: 4/29/12 at 11:17am

There's so many great actors who could play Lyman

Dustin Hoffman
Tom Skerritt
Kevin Kline
Ben Kingsley
Michael Douglas
Robert Redford (with Streisand as Polly!)
Geoffrey Rush
Gene Hackman
Tommy Lee Jones
Richard Dreyfuss

just to name a few.
#65

Other Desert Cities Film Version

Posted: 4/29/12 at 11:25am

From the list you generated, Jordan, I'd have to say Tom Skerritt is the one I would choose.

Henrik, I too thought that John Gavin provided the basic model for Lyman.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe." -John Guare, Landscape of the Body
#67

Other Desert Cities Film Version

Posted: 4/29/12 at 11:43am

I really don't see Hackman in the role at all, but he seems to be a popular suggestion.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe." -John Guare, Landscape of the Body
#69

Other Desert Cities Film Version

Posted: 4/29/12 at 12:00pm

For Silda:

Lily Tomlin
Faye Dunaway
Anjelica Huston
Frances McDormand
Barbara Hershey
Dianne Wiest
Mercedes Ruehl
Christine Lahti (could also work for Polly)
Ellen Barkin
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe." -John Guare, Landscape of the Body
#70

Other Desert Cities Film Version

Posted: 4/29/12 at 2:45pm

Good list, AC, although I'd add Judy Davis and someone I don't think we've considered before who would be ideal.

Lee Grant!
#72

Other Desert Cities Film Version

Posted: 4/29/12 at 2:50pm

I mentioned her earlier, but I think Diane Keaton would be a dynamite Silda, particularly opposite someone like Jane Fonda as Polly.
Tonya Pinkins: Then we had a "Lot's Wife" last June that was my personal favorite. I'm still trying to get them to let me sing it at some performance where we get to sing an excerpt that's gone.
Tony Kushner: You can sing it at my funeral.
#73

Other Desert Cities Film Version

Posted: 4/29/12 at 2:56pm

Lee Grant! What a PERFECT suggestion.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe." -John Guare, Landscape of the Body
#74

Other Desert Cities Film Version

Posted: 4/29/12 at 3:13pm

I think Naomi Watts would make a great Brooke as well. I think Fonda is perfect casting for Polly. She could play the ice queen very well.

I'm not a big fan of a hacked up tight plastic surgery face playing Silda. I'd like a character actress with a human face to play her. So that nixes Dunaway, Hershey, Ruehl, and Grant.
"The sexual energy between the mother and son really concerns me!"-random woman behind me at Next to Normal "I want to meet him after and bang him!"-random woman who exposed her breasts at Rock of Ages, referring to James Carpinello
#75

Other Desert Cities Film Version

Posted: 4/29/12 at 3:57pm

Wow, Naomi Watts is my favorite suggestion from this thread. She'd be absolute perfection!
Diane Keaton would be terrific as Silda, it can be a MARVIN'S ROOM reunion for her and Meryl.
"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"

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