SONDHEIM ON SONDHEIM First Preview?? — Page 6

Did you notice Vanessa Williams mess up during Children Will Listen?

She was singing with Tom and was supposed to sing "Careful the tale you tell, that is the spell" but sang "Careful before you say, listen to me". It was awkward.

And I was in the mezz and those bastard people working the sound up there were freaking out almost yelling for a good thirty minutes until an audience member went over and told them to shut the hell up. Very unprofessional of the staff at that theater.

No solo for Leslie Kritzer yet?

---

Her solo is technically "My Husband The Pig."

I sat through this last night, and was deeply disappointed. I'd have had a more productive evening by putting my Sondheim playlist on shuffle and reading a good Sondheim biography.

The interviews were far more interesting than the drab performances, and I too would buy a DVD consisting only of them. The performances were decidedly lackluster. Only Barbara Cook managed to rise above the pedestrian, her "In Buddy's Eyes" was the evening's high point. Euan Morton's limp ande unfunny "Franklyn Shepard Inc." had zero rage or pain to animate the song, and poor Tom Wopat's "Epiphany" was just plain embarassing. It didn't help that the songs are taken out of context, of course, but I kept feeling that the cast wasn't even really trying to make up for it with any real emotion at all, they were just going through the motions and climbing the set.

---