a) BEAUTY & THE BEAST b) GREY GARDENS c) GYPSY d) 110 IN THE SHADE
That's got to be the toughest call to make. The 29th is going to be a media circus.
With BEAUTY you have a 13+ year show closing. And a Disney show. And a well-written show. And a show with a great Alan Menken score. It's bound to be a grand-scale event.
With GREY GARDENS you have a show that worked it's way to Broadway keeping most of its original stars intact. Two of its performers won Tony Awards and are of legendary scale: Christine Ebersole and Mary Louise Wilson. Ebersole's performance is rated as one of the best this generation will ever see.
With GYPSY you have a wonderful backstage tale of LuPone FINALLY getting to do this role. Not only is she playing the legendary character of Mama Rose, but the show is being directed by Arthur Laurents - it's book writer. The reviews of LuPone are just as good as that of Ebersole, except LuPone's story is much more fragile.
And finally with 110 IN THE SHADE you have a limited engagement of a show that kept on extending. A show that hasn't been revived since the original. A show updated to great standards for today. A show lead by the extremely talented and crowd favorite, Audra Macdonald.
So which do you see, assuming you can only choose ONE?
"The Spectacle has, indeed, an emotional attraction of its own, but, of all the parts, it is the least artistic, and connected least with the art of poetry. For the power of Tragedy, we may be sure, is felt even apart from representation and actors. Besides, the production of spectacular effects depends more on the art of the stage machinist than on that of the poet."
--Aristotle
Good lord, that's hard. As much as I LOVED GYPSY, I would probably see GREY GARDENS, simply because I know GYPSY will be done at least once more in my life (with or without LuPone) and I don't know how many times GREY GARDENS will be done, especially with these two brilliant actresses.
Ack. In reality, I would see both on the same day.
I am a firm believer in serendipity- all the random pieces coming together in one wonderful moment, when suddenly you see what their purpose was all along.
As much as I would love to see 110 in the Shade, I would see Gypsy again.
"I wouldn't let Esparza's Bobby take my kids to the zoo...I'd be afraid he'd steal their ice cream and laugh."- YankeeFan
"People who like Sondheim enjoy cruelty."-LuvtheEmcee
GREY GARDENS!!! And that's where I'll be (crying all the way).
"A birdcage I plan to hang. I'll get to that someday. A birdcage for a bird who flew away...Around the world."
"Life is a cabaret old chum, only a cabaret old chum, and I love a cabaret!"-RIP Natasha Richardson-I was honored to have witnessed her performance as Sally Bowles.
I'd see the matinee of GREY GARDENS and GYPSY in the evening.
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
In a heartbeat, for one last time, my beloved Beast.
The fact that it would be a chance to see Donny Osmond live as Gaston would be a hoot, too.
I have to agree, all of the shows hold a tremendous amount of interest for me. I'd love to see LuPone as Mama Rose. What I've seen/heard of Grey Gardens is fascinating, and 110 is just classic - add Audra McDonald, and wow!
But to be real, I'd see anything I could get a ticket for, if only I could get to New York again! (I'm presently and usually happily stuck in Los Angeles)
What that we could stop time, win the lotto, and all have the chance to revel in the wonders of Broadway, not just this weekend, but forever and always (to paraphrase another old show's tag...) Could somebody post detailed, insightful commentaries on all of these shows (OK that would have to be four somebodies)next week? Much mahalo to anyone who will. And ten extra brownie points if you manage to link us up to any (hopefully legal) footage of the evenings...
I will go back to sulking and skulking about now... Thank goodness for the lovely BWW TV tribute to Beast! Aloha ke akua, Beast!
It was a hard decision, but I'm doing Gypsy. I technically could do another show but.. I fear for my emotional sanity with two closing shows in one day. So one it is.
Now what would you say if today I started over?
Without a thing but this taped together four leaf clover
And I'll pretend like everything is already alright
And I'll run toward the sun till the castle's out of sight
I would see Grey Gardens. I was suppose to go to the closing show,but I later found out that I had plans.So I got to see it for my final time last week.
My original plan was to do GREY GARDENS matinee and GYPSY in the evening but alas it didn't happen. Those would be my two picks though.
"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"
I would see 110, only because I haven't seen it yet...but out of the other 3 i'd go see Grey Gardens, because I loved the show but Christine was DEFINATELY having an off-night when I saw her. No doubt she'll be pulling out all of the stops on July 29th:)