"You can't overrate Bernadette Peters. She is such a genius. There's a moment in "Too Many Mornings" and Bernadette doing 'I wore green the last time' - It's a voice that is just already given up - it is so sorrowful. Tragic. You can see from that moment the show is going to be headed into such dark territory and it hinges on this tiny throwaway moment of the voice." - Ben Brantley (2022)
"Bernadette's whole, stunning performance [as Rose in Gypsy] galvanized the actors capable of letting loose with her. Bernadette's Rose did take its rightful place, but too late, and unseen by too many who should have seen it" Arthur Laurents (2009)
"Sondheim's own favorite star performances? [Bernadette] Peters in ''Sunday in the Park,'' Lansbury in ''Sweeney Todd'' and ''obviously, Ethel was thrilling in 'Gypsy.'' Nytimes, 2000
"I don't want the pretty lights to come and get me."-Homecoming 2005
"You can't pray away the gay."-Callie Torres on Grey's Anatomy.
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Tommy's song is actually an old one - recycled from the 1983 workshop- I don't remember much about Sue's new song, though I'd say overall none of the new songs really improve much on the material they replace, except to perhaps say they may sound slightly less 80s.
In general i thought they put too much focus on the Tommy- Sue storyline- or as my friend said-"they've made them the Laurey and Curly of the piece"-- they are pretty much te least intersting thing about any version of Carrie.
In this interview with the BBC, Sally Ann Triplett (the original Sue) talks about the process through which they went about staging the scene where Carrie is doused with blood in the original production. Ironically, she says they too started with just red lights, as this revival seems to be doing now. She starts talking about it at around 4:51.
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.
Ironically, she says they too started with just red lights, as this revival seems to be doing now. She starts talking about it at around 4:51.
That would only be irony if Arima had no access to that information. Being that he did, it is just sad, pathetic. Maybe the budget could just not cover his imagination.
Listen, I don't take my clothes off for anyone, even if it is "artistic". - JANICE
Why isn't it imaginative to use lights in place of real blood? Wouldn't a real bucket of blood be the literal unimaginative approach? I'm certainly not defending his choice here, but I'm not understanding the use of the word.
blaxx, you're aware this was the first preview, right? Of which there are six more weeks worth to come? They could very well be experimenting with different ideas, which is the whole point of this part of the process. That's the problem when people are anxious enough to show up at the first public performance expecting a finished product.
Give them time before you crucify them.
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.
The time for experimenting with different ideas is the rehearsal process or before. With rare exceptions they cannot make sweeping changes during previews.
My favorite comment in this thread is: "This is my all-time favorite musical."
I don't think whether or not to use a red light or a bucket of red liquid for the prom scene is a "sweeping change." It's certainly something they're capable of playing with over a six week period.
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.
"That says a lot about her approach to the role and her thinking. DePalma questioned her during production, and she had to adjust and rethink her approach as they filmed. But to me, this says so much about her brilliance. DePalma went for the horror and seriousness of Margaret White while Piper Laurie was thinking "this has to be funny." "
Knowing DePalma's work and approach to films fairly well, I strongly doubt he didn't go for at least some of the "funny" on purpose as well. (He's very much like Hitchcock--as the slight IMHO unfair comparison always goes--in that respect).
"I'm thinking in particular the moments leading up to the blood spilling. It was orchestrated in such a way to almost (and I say "almost but not quite") have a cartoonish feel to it. It could be the score to a dastardly melodrama when a maiden is tied to the railroad tracks. Or even a Saturday morning cartoon.
It starts with a "Karen Carpenter"-style '70s Love Theme (genuinely beautiful though), and then keeps getting interrupted by the cartoonish but sinister music.
This is where the horror lies. Do we laugh? Do we cringe? Is this kind of abuse funny or terrible?
The music helps it SO much. "
So well said. Pino Donaggio is so vastly underated--aside from Don't Look Now (which is how DePalma found discovered him and thought of him when his favorite Bernard Herrmann died) he basically only works in, often low budget Italian films excepting his string of masterpieces for DePalma's thrillers. His lushly romantic and melodramatic scores are pefection and like DePalma at his best somehow straddle genuine emotion (whether it's horror or sadness or whaetver) while this close to being completely over the top cartoons, probably why most Hollywood directors would never think to use him. The infamous "stalking museum" scene in Dressed to Kill, which is all music, is a perfect example (as is the similar stalking scene at the outdoor mall in the uneven Body Double).