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Post by westendwendy on Apr 15, 2017 1:24:07 GMT
But the age difference isn't ten years...it's one. I know the actors and I know the show. If I could afford to see it or had time to I would but my next trip to New York is already packed with 4 other shows. But yes it was only meant to be a minor rebuttal to your minor comment so let's move on. BUT THEY LOOK TEN YEARS DIFFERENT ON STAGE!!!!!!!! Forget the real ages!!!!!! Being one year or one hundred years in reality has nothing to do with it. I really don't know why you can't accept it, she looks older, I said it's not ideal, she looks a tad older, move on....
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Post by Deleted on Apr 15, 2017 1:51:09 GMT
Sigh, I'd already said to agree to disagree and then a second time to move on. You seem to be someone that requires a much more visually satisfying form of casting than I do whether it be complaints about weight or age etc. For me, as long as it's within reason, it's much more about the acting and the singing. This is the last post I'll be making on the matter, so please don't reply to me with another caps lock post telling me to move on. I'm trying to!
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Post by Deleted on Apr 15, 2017 21:29:24 GMT
I am Seeing this
In 15 days
👯👯👯👯👯
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Post by ali973 on Apr 16, 2017 9:58:55 GMT
In about a month for me.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Apr 16, 2017 11:01:12 GMT
I am Seeing this In 15 days 👯👯👯👯👯 Weak story, shallow characterisation, undramatic songs, all gussied up by throwing money at it and plonking in an aging star so the audience are supposed to ignore all of that? All it needs is for you to have invested money in it and you'll be claiming that it's the most important work of art ever.
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Post by ali973 on Apr 16, 2017 14:24:40 GMT
Your comments are slightly ageist. This aging star is somewhat of a superstar, and is doing wonders in the role according to just about everyone who has seen it. It's not the deepest, most meaningful or most sophisticated show. But it's a great piece of entertainment and one of the most beloved classical musical comedies.
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Post by westendwendy on Apr 16, 2017 14:29:21 GMT
Your comments are slightly ageist. This aging star is somewhat of a superstar, and is doing wonders in the role according to just about everyone who has seen it. It's not the deepest, most meaningful or most sophisticated show. But it's a great piece of entertainment and one of the most beloved classical musical comedies. They aren't ageist. I saw the show two days ago. She's fabulous but too old for the role. Her voice isn't what it was and she wings it. The night after I visited the show she had a coughing fit on stage and had to stop the show. Gavin Creel came on stage with water and throat sweets (she pretended to choke and fell on the floor). Talking about the correct casting ages any ageist. It's casting, type and suitability and in this case - can the talent deliver the goods night after night.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Apr 16, 2017 14:37:42 GMT
Aging does not equal incapable! My point being that their high level of experience is used to compensate for the piece's shortcomings. It's good producing and not always about age (see Sheridan Smith helping to paper over the weaknesses of Funny Girl from the same year as Dolly).
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Post by westendwendy on Apr 16, 2017 14:45:51 GMT
Aging does not equal incapable! My point being that their high level of experience is used to compensate for the piece's shortcomings. It's good producing and not always about age (see Sheridan Smith helping to paper over the weaknesses of Funny Girl from the same year as Dolly). With Chita Rivera no - with Bette Midler yes
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Post by crabtree on Apr 17, 2017 15:56:32 GMT
I guess time has denied us the chance to see Ms Midler as Desiree in Little Night music. I'd rather see her play that part, regardless of her age, than Dolly. Oh she would tear your heart to pieces with Send in the Clowns, and do the wit beautifully.
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Post by ali973 on Apr 17, 2017 18:12:50 GMT
I don't know if Midler has the subtlety and finesse to do a Sondheim. A big, brash musical comedy, yes. Midler is a larger than live character, and she simply does the same thing over and over again- and that works. I don't think the Divine Miss M as Desiree Armfeld would work.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 20, 2017 17:23:51 GMT
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Post by 49thand8th on Apr 20, 2017 17:24:54 GMT
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Post by couldileaveyou on Apr 20, 2017 17:30:31 GMT
I'm curious to read the reviews tomorrow, but I'm sure they will be very positive
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Post by Deleted on Apr 20, 2017 17:32:17 GMT
I'm curious to read the reviews tomorrow, but I'm sure they will be very positive Oh, no question about it they will be overwhelmingly positive. I expect glowing reviews for Bette and big shout-outs for the Supporting Cast, as well as the Choreography at the very least.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 20, 2017 17:34:51 GMT
I get dibs on the headline:
"It's so nice to be Bette home where she belongs"
If Ben Brantley steals that one, I'm suing.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 21, 2017 0:59:03 GMT
Well the reviews are coming in... and the first is very negative... I shall paste the whole thing as you have to be a subscriber to read it so here it is for you guys. The Wall Street Journal: "Disaster Despite a Diva" Bette Midler is playing in “Hello, Dolly!” on Broadway. As far as most people are concerned, this review could end right here. The box office at the Shubert Theatre has been printing $100 bills by the truckload ever since previews for the show started in March, and no matter what I or anybody else has to say, it will continue to do so as long as Ms. Midler doesn’t slip and fracture a tibia. She is what she is, “Hello, Dolly!” is what it is, and putting the two together is as close as show business gets to a no-brainer: “Dolly” won’t work without a superstar in the title role and Patti LuPone is otherwise occupied, so casting Ms. Midler as Dolly Gallagher Levi, the matchmaker with a big heart and an empty purse who longs for a rich husband to ease her life, makes perfect sense. That’s the theory, anyway, and judging by the show-stopping shrieks of joy that greeted Ms. Midler when she made her first entrance on Wednesday night, her fans are going to love this revival. I’ve never seen a performance of anything at which there was so unanimous a consensus on the part of the audience that the diva could do no wrong. Perhaps critics ought not to dash cold water on such displays of collective affection, but the producers of “Hello, Dolly!” are charging $169 for an orchestra seat, for which reason it seems to me that I have an obligation to report honestly on what I saw and heard. So here goes: Ms. Midler’s singing voice is in a desperate, sometimes shocking state of disrepair. If you remember what Ethel Merman sounded like in her last years, you’ll know exactly how she sounded in “Before the Parade Passes By.” I’m not sure whether she’s suffering from an acute case of laryngitis (her speaking voice was hoarse as well) or the inescapable effects of age (she is 71). Whatever the reason, her singing suggested that she’d have trouble making it through the curtain calls, much less the run of a show as demanding as “Dolly.” As for the rest of the performance, Ms. Midler doesn’t even bother to act: She simply comes on stage and plays her familiar self, albeit at a disturbingly low level of energy. Unlike Carol Channing, who created the role, she can’t dance and isn’t funny (I was actually embarrassed by her mugging in the courtroom scene). All she has to offer is the memory of a great career, and if that’s enough for you, then you’ll be happy to shell out to see her in “Hello, Dolly!” Ms. Midler is playing opposite David Hyde Pierce, who is all wrong as Horace Vandergelder, the blustering miser who falls for Dolly after fighting off his inescapable fate right up to the finale. He is, to be sure, a talented actor, but his lightweight charm is utterly ill-suited to the role, and I’ve no idea what possessed him to speak his lines in a now-you-hear-it, now-you-don’t Groucho Marx accent. What’s more, he and Ms. Midler have no romantic chemistry at all, which makes the show even less dramatically plausible. Jerry Zaks and Warren Carlyle, the director and choreographer, have staged this revival in a cartoonish manner. That’s appropriate in a way, since “Hello, Dolly!” is a cartoon version of Thornton Wilder’s “The Matchmaker,” the enduringly winning 1955 farce from which it was adapted by Jerry Herman and Michael Stewart in 1964. Nevertheless, it’s possible to perform “Dolly” with the same unforced sweetness and underlying emotional seriousness that make “The Matchmaker” so satisfying a romantic comedy, and that’s what’s wrong with Mr. Zaks’s staging: It’s totally unfelt. Every supporting performance is a grotesque caricature—even Kate Baldwin and Jennifer Simard, two of Broadway’s best musical-comedy actors, are here reduced to the most benumbingly obvious of clichés—and every laugh is jerked out of the audience by brute force instead of emerging naturally from the script. As for the musical numbers, they’re camped up to the hilt, an approach that puts an odd spin on “It Takes a Woman.” I very much liked Santo Loquasto’s deliberately old-fashioned sets and costumes, which would have served a better production very well indeed. It was also a pleasure to hear the 22-piece pit band, which played Larry Hochman’s new orchestrations with satisfying professionalism. But there is nothing else good to be said for this “Hello, Dolly!” While the show itself, like all of Mr. Herman’s musicals, is lapel-clutchingly cheery to the point of diminishing returns, it’s not hard to see why it was and is so popular, nor is it impossible for skeptics to appreciate a production that makes the most of its cornball charms. This one makes the worst of them.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 21, 2017 1:07:05 GMT
LA Times: Rave Time Out: Rave AM New York: Positive Daily Mail: Rave Washington Post: Rave Chicago Tribune: Rave Vulture: Rave NBC New York: Rave The Hollywood Reporter: Rave Variety: Rave Daily News: Rave Entertainment Weekly: Rave Deadline: Positive Newsday: Positive
... probably should of put the negative one after in hindsight.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 21, 2017 2:04:28 GMT
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Post by ali973 on Apr 21, 2017 3:57:31 GMT
Wow that WSJ review..
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Post by Deleted on Apr 21, 2017 8:55:07 GMT
There has GOT to be a cast recording coming of this right?
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Post by couldileaveyou on Apr 21, 2017 9:01:17 GMT
There has GOT to be a cast recording coming of this right? May 12, I suppose
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Post by ali973 on Apr 21, 2017 11:30:14 GMT
Same day as Dreamgirls cast recording. It's just. too. much.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 21, 2017 23:30:58 GMT
There were always going to be critics who wanted to pick holes in this.
It's a critic-proof show with so much cash in the bank that will sell as long as Bette stays in it.
I genuinely cannot wait to see it!
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Post by ali973 on Apr 22, 2017 6:05:24 GMT
Here's some (kind of) footage from the production:
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Post by hal9000 on Apr 24, 2017 15:28:44 GMT
Disagree that Bette is not popular enough in the U.K. to come to the West End. People would come far and wide to see her. Don't underestimate the popularity of her torch songs and films with people over 30. Of course she would be very expensive.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2017 16:24:58 GMT
Here's some (kind of) footage from the production: I. Want. That. Hat.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2017 16:32:27 GMT
This would be great for the Palladium or Drury Lane. The large venues would give the prestige that would appeal toa star and allow producers to make money quicker than a smaller size. She is a big enough name in the UK but as mentioned she would bring in people from all over Europe.
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Post by westendwendy on Apr 24, 2017 16:44:22 GMT
This will never transfer to the West End. Period. Bette is on 150,000 dollars a week before a cut of the box office. It's too expensive and ticket prices in the West End are nowhere near what they are on Broadway (premium for this are 750!!!!) It will never ever happen sad to say.. It's a one off event.
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Post by ali973 on Apr 24, 2017 18:46:36 GMT
I agree with westendwendy..won't transfer. Everything about it is Americana, American and a true celebration of American musical theatre.
Maybe Sheridan Smith will do the 2030 revival in London. I honestly don't see what the fuss is all about, but you guys seem to love her.
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