bring back "the rink" — Page 2

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#26

re: bring back 'the rink'

Posted: 3/30/07 at 8:47pm

Saw this show a few times during its broadway run. Liza came into the show as a favor so that they could get backing for it. Chitas name alone was not going to do it. It is interesting that part of the reason the show ultimately did not work is because it was hard to buy Liza as a frumpy wild child. And ...Chita and Liza....god love them.. had no buisness playing moiher and daughter. I wish they had done it as originaly intended.. as a sole vehicle for Chita.

HUSSY POWER! ------ HUSSY POWER!

#27

re: bring back 'the rink'

Posted: 3/30/07 at 8:59pm

I've heard a lot of mixed comments about the Men playing all the flashback parts, even women--many didn't think that element of McNally's book worked (was it his first musical?) I admit that it's one of the more interesting "2nd tier" Kander and Ebb shows--probably my fave (in my first tier I'd put hicago, Cabaret, Kiss and the underated Zorba) though I aslo think some of the dramatics are hard to pull off as written--the rape, etc.

E

#28

re: bring back 'the rink'

Posted: 3/30/07 at 9:47pm

I think I've said this numerous times, but what stood out was the scene in the second act with Chita singing to God about how she's gonna tell him about the nights and how she doesn't believe in him and Liza singing about the various affairs her mother is having and the men in the background singing "Mrs. A, Mrs. A." God. I cried. I really did. It was magic. The Rink, while no Sunday in the Park with George, was magic.

#29

re: bring back 'the rink'

Posted: 3/30/07 at 9:54pm

The rewritten book lessens the number of drag roles. Now there are only the two old ladies on the boardwalk who do the number with Anna, and the old nun at the prom. Thus, the men only play comical drag roles, they don'thave to play convincing "pretty girls".

#30

re: bring back 'the rink'

Posted: 3/30/07 at 9:59pm

I think Michele Pawk is a bit old for Angel. Emily Skinner, perhaps? Patti is the perfect choice for Anna.

"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

#31

re: bring back 'the rink'

Posted: 3/30/07 at 10:04pm

Amber, I'm completely obsessed with Mrs. A, Chita's bit gives me chills!

I'd love to see Patti and Emily Skinner.

Theatre is a safe place to do the unsafe things that need to be done. -John Patrick Shanley

#32

re: bring back 'the rink'

Posted: 3/30/07 at 10:06pm

I forgot that McNally revised the book--was this done for London or after?

Any other big changes?

#33

re: bring back 'the rink'

Posted: 3/30/07 at 10:37pm

My post on page 1 of this thread lists most of the changes.

The rewrite is fairly recent - late 1990's. There is a line about Oprah.

Other changes: the character of Uncle Fausto is gone. Angel learns the truth about her father from her prom date.

Updated On: 3/30/07 at 10:37 PM

#34

re: bring back 'the rink'

Posted: 3/31/07 at 12:50am

I don't see Michelle Pawk playing LuPone's daughter at all. This show is fairly okay, but I still have no idea how Chita Rivera won the Tony over Bernadette Peters back in the 80s. Either way, I see this more as an Encores! concert or a Roundabout limited engagement with two big (or huge) names in the two major roles.
I'm pretty sure Liza didn't do this much as a favor as she did it because she loved the material, loved Kander & Ebb, wanted to do a role that was very much against her persona, and wanted to work with Chita of course.

"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"

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