Oh my.
Well, I think Nathan Lane has some of the most extraordinary comedic timing and technique of any actor in the business. You may find him annoying or too similar show to show, but few, if any, in this generation are in his class in terms of pulling off that kind of old-school, Zero Mostel larger-than-life performance that so many star vehicles of the past require. Schtick is a nearly lost art and he's one of the very few left who can pull it off with aplomb.
As for Jennifer Holliday, she's perhaps the ONLY performer in my lifetime with the ability to stop a show in its tracks and get a standing ovation every time she opens her mouth. Not since Merman has ANYBODY stopped a show like she stopped "Dreamgirls," where the night I saw it, the standing ovation started halfway through "And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going" and there was something resembling a riot in the theatre by the time the curtain dropped with people standing ON their seats and dozens of people in the Imperial Theatre rushing the stage to get closer to her. I saw 8 other Effies after that and none of them pulled that off.
I saw her in the pre-Broadway tours of "Sing Mahalia Sing" and Maurice Hines' "Harlem Suite" and the same things happened. Standing ovations before numbers were even close to finished, chanting, shouting, weeping and wailing in the audience -- the woman turns normally sedate audiences of reserved theatregoers into congregates at a revival meeting. NO ONE else I've ever seen can create the sort of electricity she can in a theatre.
Overrated? If anything anything, she's underrated.
"What a story........ everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end." -- Birdie
[http://margochanning.broadwayworld.com/]
"The Devil Be Hittin' Me" -- Whitney
Updated On: 5/20/05 at 09:51 PM
