Use of Microphones on Broadway — Page 3

CONAries said: "Genrally speaking microphones should be used in musicals due to the orchestra, however, I personally feel there is no reason why ANY play should use microphones! Any trained actor should be able to project their voice throughout a theatre."

The problem is that a lot of them can't. Especially the ones who come from Hollywood and are used to close-ups. Personally, I would rather have mikes than have to struggle to hear what some actors are saying.

I remember attending an unmiked performance of Plaza Suite a thousand years ago. George C Scott had left, I believe unexpectedly because I expected to see him, and he was replaced by Nicol Williamson, a highly acclaimed actor. Maureen Stapleton was a wonderful actress who, to me, always seemed to be shouting a little bit to make sure her voice carried. As great as she was, it sometimes took her out of character to me. Well she was onstage with Williamson and, not once but twice, two different people in the audience yelled out 'louder' because they could not hear what he was saying (I couldn't either and I belie e that I was still in my teens). His failure to project, coupled with her tendency to shout, was jarring. I still remember that 50 years later. Had they been miked a bit, the performance would have been better. Can think of other cases, but that was the most memorable.

I have three very different comments.

One is that the quality of amplification differs greatly. I understood every word of "A Chorus Line" way back in the original run. I understood almost no lyrics in "Matilda." I often read others on boards like this comment about the problem of understanding "Matilda." It was probably not helped by dialect.

Two is a totally different thought. In 1999, I heard Mandy Patinkin unamplified, with just piano accompaniment in the small Helen Hayes Theater. It was transporting to hear a natural voice.

Third, my husband tells this story. Many stage singers of the old years didn't transfer to movies in part because they were famous on the stage for projection and enunciation: Mary Martin and Ethel Merman being two examples. There had been floor mikes at the front of the stage for years and so many songs were staged in one, that is, close to the front of the stage. Jim saw "Funny Girl" and it was the first time he realized the show used radio mikes. Fanny could sing upstage center. He came home to his then lover in Brooklyn and said, "Gosh, it was a radio show!" He's gotten used to it in the years since 1964. (Yes, he's old.)

Matilda was incredibly distorted and I don't know why. My guess is that it probably starts with overamplification, which is something I'll never understand. I saw a production of Betrayal at a tiny theatre here in Toronto that had pre-recorded interstitial music that played between scenes, and it was so loud it made my ears crackle, and there was plenty of that in Matilda.