Star-studded night at THE WEDDING SINGER! 4.1.06- Page 6

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 4/4/06 at 6:37pm

Laura Benanti, if she is smart and wants to stick with the show, will do every single performance before opening and not even give the producers the chance to entertain Madigan in the role before an audience...

[Unknown User]

Posted: 4/4/06 at 7:05pm

I was at the gypsy run and had tickets for last nights show as well.Some smart cuts had already been made but Laura seemed even more bland as her funny bits do not land with us and now she is not funny at all.Julia is a natural comedian with flavor...that is what she is missing. And Stephen Lynch I felt is now working his tail off since he is getting no funny from his leading lady.I do not think they can just put Maddigan on for previews...but I would pay to go back and see that!Spanger,Finley&Maddigan...along with those boys...not sure if my bladder could take it.It is just a shame that as talented as Laura is, it is not a natural role or a natural sing for her.Her reviews might keep Wedding Singer from its Tony potential, yet I still have a few more shows to see.Speaking of Tony...Hello Spanger and Cahoon!!

[LeaGirl]

Posted: 4/4/06 at 8:06pm

Just to be dorkily curious, do you recall exactly what was cut? That show could lose 15 minutes and be the better for it...

[jdixon69]

Posted: 4/5/06 at 12:04am

My uninformed take:
I never thought of the movie version as a romantic comedy. Sure, it was a comedy (about romance), but it had none of that classic give and take. All Drew really had to do was look cute and get rescued - which she did magnificently. The film, funny and charming as it is, is more "Happy Gilmore" than "It Happened One Night".

But the casting of a Tony-nominated Broadway darling opposite a basically unknown comic perhaps created an expectation that the "girl" part was going to be beefed up into a classic rom-com leading lady. It sounds like that didn't happen, and people going in expecting Benanti to be more than just the cute girl who gets rescued are going to be disappointed. As an earlier poster noted, it's not "The Wedding Singer and The Waitress"
Updated On: 4/5/06 at 12:04 AM

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 4/5/06 at 12:39am

My disappointment in Benanti (and ultimately, the show) is not because of the size of her part - it's the way it's written, the way she performs it, and the way she's directed. I'm not quite sure where to place the blame, but it seems sort of all-inclusive.

[zzannahk]

Posted: 4/5/06 at 12:48am

i have to disagree about stephen lynch being a "basically unknown comic" he has 4 albums, a dvd, and s special appearance on XM radio, a comedy central presents episode, all present him as not just a comic, but also a comedic singer

and iTunes named both of Stephen’s CD’s, “A Little Bit Special” and “Superhero” as two of the 100 best-selling independent albums in iTunes’ history

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 4/5/06 at 9:27am

OK, a few things:

First off, Stephen Lynch can be one of the best known comics out there (but personally, before this show I had never heard of him), but this is not only his Broadway debut, it is his first theater credit.

Also, we don't need to start a new thread just to continue a discussion that's already 5 pages in the making. The original poster can just change the initial thread title to something like "The Wedding Singer Previews".

Updated On: 4/5/06 at 09:27 AM

[LeaGirl]

Posted: 4/5/06 at 9:53am

Munk - I agree, the blame can be spread everywhere for the Benanti thing, I think.

The FEW LINES she is given that are amusing she delivers very well - the scene where she is drunk is adorable, as is the scene where she tells him his songs are "too dark" - but they don't give us enough of that. And I don't think she has the chutzpah to make the best out of the rest of it. (unlike Amy Spanger, who can make all her material strong even if it isn't) On top of that, some really odd blocking (and the stupid "fake blah blah" scene in the chapel take away from ONE moment she should have NO trouble with (and doesn't) - but it's diminished with all that endless posturing by the fake celebrities.

I think you're right in saying the blame can spread across the board. ARE YOU LISTENING, WEDDING SINGER PEOPLE? Some (but not all) of this could be fixed... easily... and now.

[MistressoftheHouse]

Posted: 4/5/06 at 10:16am

One of the problems here is that all of this Wedding Singer talk is scattered over a few threads...it was brought up in this thread: https://forum.broadwayworld.com/readmessage.cfm?thread=892548&dt=23 that TWS is not Stephen Lynch's first acting credit although that does not mean that what he did in the past was anything big.