Remembering MARIN MAZZIE in Next to Normal and BERNADETTE PETERS in A Little Night Music

I miss, miss these performances so much.

Some people described Mazzie as a more "subtle" Diana than Ripley (e.g. hannah_bway described Marin's performance as "subtle but still affecting" and this guy on everythingmusicals.com said Marin's performance was "particularly" subtle, both suggesting Ripley was over the top, and Brantley described her performance less positively than subtle, but "calmly self-aware").

Not to suggest that subtle acting isn't a good thing, but when I saw her (early December) I wouldn't describe her performance as subtle. Yes, she didn't do the mugging (I don't know if I've used that term correctly) in "My Psychopharmacologist and I" that I saw Ripley do on the tour, but there was nothing subtle about Mazzie's painfully emotional "I Miss the Mountains". It was really a slap across the face of emotion.

I agree with Brantley that she had a "sardonic quality" to her line readings especially with her interactions with the doctor (which I have no problem with), and her gushing streams of tears (also not quite subtle) certainly made her seem "depressed" – But not just. I was particularly surprised at how intense her "You Don't Know", with her angry screeching/shouting, was. (Before seeing her, that isolated clip of her singing the end of "I Am The One" had me to believe her voice made her unsuitable for this). And obviously the novelty of seeing her Husband responding to her in this state made it more intense. Judging by clips of her first performance Mazzie made her emotions much more extreme by the end of the run.

SPOILER

My favourite part of her performance was in "There's a world", where Diana was deeply upset by the thought of losing her son/Mazzie was crying intensely. Gabe approaches her and she touches his face, and the crying seems to change tone from intense sadness to happiness. It really seemed like there was no other way for her to move forward but to commit suicide to 'be with him'.

At a 'talk-back' session on the tour an audience member interestingly claimed that they didn't think there was enough depression in the show. The response from the host was that they need to make liberties etc.. because depression is less interesting than mania. Although I would disagree that there wasn't "enough depression", and this is something that can be especially subtle (cf. 'NIGHT, MOTHER), I don't think audience members would have that concern with Mazzie.


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And then there is Bernadette Peters in A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC, another performance which was anything but subtle. Her desiree was almost an obnoxiously playful teenage girl at times (which was always funny, at least!).

But she really was able to convey how not-glamorous her "Glamorous Life" was, making gestures and facial expressions after every 'glamorous' event (e.g. half-empty houses).

And her "Send in the Clowns" certainly did give me "sense of being present at an indelible moment in the history of musical theatre" (NYtimes). Bernadette Peters is expert at being vulnerable, and this 'moment' was the perfect combination of a great Sondheim song that suited her voice, her acting skills and a very intimate production, which seemed even more sincere coming after a night of ridiculous over-the-topness.


When will we next get replacements as exciting and good as these????

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Ditto Jordan. My heart stopped for a second. I did see both performances and echo everything you said.

Alice Ripley blew me away as Diana BUT Marin Mazzie...left me speechless. What an amazing performance she gave as Diana.

I saw marin mazzie and thought she was incredible. When she sang I miss the mountains it hit me like a train.

*SPOILER*

My absolute favorite part of Marin's Next to Normal was Dreamed a Dance/Come With Me. Unlike Alice's Diana, there was a turning point in Marin's Diana that you knew she was 1) hallucinating and 2) going to attempt suicide. You saw the decision.

Saw both performances within a night of each other last July--what an embarrassment of riches for me! I was never the biggest N2N fan, but I did see it three times: once at 2nd Stage, once on Broadway with the original cast (November 2009), and once with the replacement cast. I was impressed with Alice's intense performance Off-Broadway, but when I saw her again almost two years later, she was walking through the show and her voice was shot. It could have been an off-night, but I was shocked by how weak her acting was. Seeing the show with Mazzie and Danieley was a revelation; I still didn't love the show, but I could finally understand why people had such a personal connection to it. Mazzie WAS Diana, singing tremendously and creating a complex character without overplaying it. I'm sorry I didn't get to see her again.

I did get to see Peters three times as Desiree. I understand why some people had complaints, but what didn't work for some worked extremely well for me. There was a deepness and maturity in her performance that I hadn't seen in her work in a long time.

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AC,

it's funny you say that re: Peters' maturity. There were moments in "Night Music" that i felt she was "leaning on her tricks" (i specifically remember this moment where she jumped up and down and I didn't buy it at all). but then again, she sits on that bed and delivers "Send in the Clowns" as if t were written for her - one of the most compelling performances of a song, anywhere, I had ever seen. It was like its own one-act play.

I found her Desiree fascinatingly uneven - intensely vulnerable and compelling one minute, and then in the next, transparent and hidden under a facade of "musical theatre acting" tricks.

and with Zeta Jones, the "diva bravado" I bought more than Peters, but in song, you would think that she had just come out of a college acting program. Two very interestingly uneven performances in an interestingly uneven production.

Updated On: 9/25/11 at 07:58 PM

Peters' "Send in the Clowns" made up for any other complaints one might have had about her performance. It was the stuff that Broadway legends were made of. And to think- how fleeting the chance to see it actually was! No (official) recording, no awards.

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Thanks for uploading that.

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