"It's sad when it's all about the money. What happened to talent and a good time? That should count for somethin'." There may be a light over at the Frankenstein place, but clearly there's nobody home at the castle.
So, total conjecture here. But I do believe that if Barry Weissler had been able to continue with the narrative of "TV funny girl breaks foot, true triple threat triumphs in the nick of time," this show would have opened in New York. But you could actually sort of follow what might have been happening behind the scenes, with Barry first telling that story, then backing away from it, and everybody saying, "Gee, we hope Christina's back for New York" and Christina allegedly being furious that there were even suggestions she might not be. I can just picture her backstage in Boston after reading that Times article. And her little dog, too!
But she was the name above the title, god knows we've heard again and again how HARD she worked, how much she WANTED this, how she has NO INTEREST IN GOING INTO HER FIRST BROADWAY GIG AS A REPLACEMENT, so I can just imagine the heat she put on the producers for having the temerity to suggest that a) the metatarsel would not be healed for opening and b) Charlotte was FINALLY going to get her big break.
I think it would have been very very cool of Christina to say, "Yep, I broke my foot, drat the luck. But everybody should go see it, Charlotte is fantastic. This is showbiz. And a classic showbiz story at that." Then, perhaps she could have lowered her expectations, gone in as a replacement, and wowed the critics on a second viewing. It should have been a great story.
But SOMEBODY inhibited the narrative.
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