Stritch's crossed legs.....- Page 2

[nobodyhome]

Posted: 7/28/10 at 6:36am

"As a straight laced matriach. She would never cross her legs. She would consider it very unladylike.The wheelchair is immaterial."

But she's also a former courtesan, a woman who broke rules. That's part of the irony of her lamenting lost traditions of elegance and style.

What kind of strait-laced (yes, that's the correct spelling, although straight-laced is also acceptable) matriarch would say something like, "Don't squeeze your bosoms against the chair, dear. It'll stunt their growth"? Well, a very strange strait-laced matriarch might, one who was strict in her opinions of what was appropriate but not one who was strict about traditional morality and proper behavior. This is not a woman who worries about conforming to traditional ideas of ladylike behavior.

Great courtesans broke the rules in many ways, including the rules of what was acceptable public behavior for women.
Updated On: 7/28/10 at 06:36 AM

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 7/28/10 at 8:11am

nobodyhome - my issue, though again I think the design is stunning, but from a pure semantics point of view is the color. A red dress in that time period had a certain connotation, and given Desiree's past - her known infidelities with married men and her stake to prove herself as a legitimate alternative to Frederick, I think realistically, she would have been a little more conscious of her choice in attire... In this production, Desiree, of course, wears a red dress during the play-within-the-play, in which her character is clearly a courtesan or at least a woman with a dubious reputation.

The 'dinner table' scene - lest us forget in the script occurs AFTER dinner. Armfeldt is presenting a desert wine and its entirely conceivable that desert could be served in a parlour (as in the NYCO production) or outside (particularly during Swedish summers when the sun is still bright at 10:00 at night).

Sitting a large group of actors around one table is always problematic for proscenium stage - you either have half the cast with their backs to the audience or some kind of configuration that's completely un-organic to an actual dinner party - I don't blame Nunn and other directors who have tried to find an alternate way to stage that scene.


Updated On: 7/28/10 at 08:11 AM

[Gothampc]

Posted: 7/28/10 at 8:41am

The entire show should have been reimagined.

Picture it: a plantation in Georgia, 1860. Renee Zellwegger as Desiree, Tim McGraw as Frederick, Margo Martindale as Madame Armfeldt and La Chanze as Petra. In the Antebellum South, there's not only war in the wind, but passion and romance as the Old South is beginning to crumble.

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 7/28/10 at 9:55am

I always thought the "walking" in LIASONS was her fantasy, like Violet's dance in SIDESHOW.
What gets me is Stritch's feathered sweepy hair don't.

[best12bars]

Posted: 7/28/10 at 10:13am

The entire show should have been reimagined.

Picture it: a plantation in Georgia, 1860. Renee Zellwegger as Desiree, Tim McGraw as Frederick, Margo Martindale as Madame Armfeldt and La Chanze as Petra. In the Antebellum South, there's not only war in the wind, but passion and romance as the Old South is beginning to crumble.

"Gone With the Smiles?"

I actually think this story could work in several other settings besides a turn-of-the-20th-century Sweden. But the music ties in too closely to this version. So scrap the score and REALLY re-imagine it. A bayou setting would be cool. So would an island setting.

Now back to Streisand's crossed eyes ...

... or was it Stritch's crossed legs ... ?

[Gothampc]

Posted: 7/28/10 at 10:59am

Actually some people might have a problem with my reinterpretation. I can see how they might wrongly equate the sentiment behind "Send in the Clowns" with the South losing the war. But the symbolism would be very powerful.

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 7/28/10 at 11:01am

maybe there can be some light canons in the distance to echo the pathos of Desiree's folly.

[newintown]

Posted: 7/28/10 at 11:31am

One of the reasons why this semi-ridiculous production succeeds is because only a tiny minority of the population:
a) know anything at all about social conventions of the recent past, or
b) care.

Re: gowns at dinner - the European upper classes (and those who sought to be seen as upper class) always dressed for dinner, up through the early 1960s. Gowns make perfect sense, no matter what the season.

The color red, although seen as scandalous in America perhaps, may not have had the same connotation in Sweden. However, it matters less than not at all - if the actress looks good in red, let her wear it. There are certainly many late-19th century/early 20th century portraits of high-class women in red, so obviously it happened.

Re: the dinner table. To say that staging a scene at a table is awkward shows an ignorance of Prince's brilliant staging of this scene in which almost everyone but Madame A had their backs to the audience, and had to turn in exaggerated profile to deliver their lines, adding to the almost Moliere-esque quality of the scene. To naturalistically stage it on the ground is pandering to those with little patience for style, and lowers the bar, rather than raising it.

That all said, the piece is so good as written, silly tampering by self-aggrandizing directors can't ruin it.
Updated On: 7/28/10 at 11:31 AM

[Scripps2]

Posted: 7/28/10 at 1:19pm

"BUT...I also wonder: would a classy woman of that time CROSS her legs at all????"

Probably not.

But then Madame Armfeldt was possibly not so much classy as nouveaux riche.

Perhaps Madame's crossing of her legs is her compensating for a lifetime spent with them open.

[SNAFU]

Posted: 7/28/10 at 2:20pm

NEXT UP: Stritch's Brazilian wax....

[Gothampc]

Posted: 7/28/10 at 2:30pm

Stritch crosses her legs depending on what shoe she has her lines written on.

[madbrian]

Posted: 7/28/10 at 2:36pm

To defuse the escalating leg-crossing controversy, the producers of A Little Night Music have announced that, effective immediately, the role of Mme Armfeldt will be played by Sharon Stone.

Updated On: 7/28/10 at 02:36 PM

[Auggie27]

Posted: 7/28/10 at 3:11pm

Saw it last night, and she was razor sharp, phumphering on only one line, and one that invites a moment of dithering (top of act two) Remarkable performance, clear, emotionally full, hysterical and heartbreaking. And her avoidance of old lady-isms grand dame shtick remints the part. I suppose the hairdo could be less Stritch-y, but that's my only reservation.

As for Peters? Perfection. And her chemistry with Hanson is lovely and real.

With these two women at the top of the ticket, the show is breathtakingly reinvented.

[HistoryBoy2]

Posted: 7/28/10 at 3:30pm

Damn, someone got to the Basic Instinct joke before me. Good work.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 7/28/10 at 4:19pm

"They should just let her wear the dress shirt and black tights."

She stole that idea from Judy Garland. And she should give it back.

[ClapYo'Hands]

Posted: 7/28/10 at 4:26pm

It's just a very lazy, American thing of her to do...

[nobodyhome]

Posted: 7/28/10 at 7:28pm

Thanks for clarifying what bothers you about it, Michael Bennett. I'm not sure if that's what bothered Grimes about it. I think some time in the last couple of years there was another interview with her (though I can't find it online) in which she also used the word "luncheon."

In an interview with the Sondheim Review, at the time she was playing Madame Armfeldt at Williamstown, she talks about the reasons she was reluctant to take on the role of Desiree in 1973 when Johns got sick. She discusses the things she told Sondheim, Prince, and Wheeler that she hoped could be adjusted if she joined the show. She doesn't mention the red dress in that interview, but in Contradictions, Prince did write that she had an issue with one of the costumes. I wonder if back in 1973, she also thought that the dinner was a luncheon and then realized it wasn't when she did the show in 1994, but now she's forgotten and she again thinks it's a luncheon.

Too much about that. I have to say that I mostly agree with newintown. Prince and Birch made the staging with the guests' backs to the audience work. It doesn't have to be done that way, but it does seem to me very strange for the cast to be sitting on the ground for that scene. I'm not saying it derails the production, but it seems wrong. I guess I'll know more about how it works (or doesn't) next week when I see the production.

I wasn't wild about the change in the City Opera production either. There's something about the formality of the dinner party — and the guests' flirtatious banter and the tensions that arise at the formal party — that's very much what the show is about. Losing it may not destroy the show, but I can't help but suspect that it does take something away, whatever compensations the production may have elsewhere.

Even if we view red as being a sort of tainted color, I still don't see any reason for an actress playing Desiree not to wear it in that scene if that's the color that looks best on her. Everyone at the weekend knows exactly what's going on, and Desiree knows that they know. She's not especially hiding her intentions. She wants to look her best. And if she looks her best in red, she'll wear that.