| Chicago, Cabaret, and Replacements in Theatre: These Are a Few of My Favorite Things. (long) | |
| Posted by: DanielVincent 06:30 pm EDT 09/17/24 | |
| In reply to: Thoughts on Replacements - BudApp935 11:00 am EDT 09/17/24 | |
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| This is one of my favorite topics, so I’m always happy to see discussions around it pop-up. However, the fact that you mention Linda Lavin—who was my first Rose and remains my favorite, despite her performance being widely maligned—fills me with delight. Arguably, the gold standard in contemporary musical theatre replacements are Reba McEntire in Annie Get Your Gun and Fantasia in The Color Purple. There was talk of a TV movie musical version of Annie Get Your Gun with Reba, which I’m sad never materialized. However, I have mixed feelings about Fantasia getting to preserve her Celie on film. On one hand, I’m grateful for the record; on the other, she is nowhere near as powerful as she was onstage, likely because of the many questionable choices made in the adaptation. I’d argue the corresponding gold standard for replacements in a straight play belongs to Sally Field and Bill Irwin in The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?. I wrote about them recently in a post on this board, but it’s worth repeating that they transformed the Broadway production for me by giving their characters far more dramatic arcs because they started in softer and more accessible places than Ruehl and Pullman. Close behind these four I’d put Elaine Paige and especially Betty Buckley in Sunset Blvd., and Anne Heche in Proof and Valerie Harper in The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife. Does Donna Murphy’s Dolly Levi count? She did, after all, play the role full-time during Bette’s vacations. Does Cheyenne Jackson in Xanadu count? I was one of the few people who got to see James Carpinello. His injury and subsequent departure from the production were a shame, but Jackson was much funnier, sexier, and more vocally suited to the score. His bemused himbo attachment were as integral to the show’s hilarity as Kerry Butler’s sendup of Olivia Newton-John. And speaking of campy sendups, Titanique would, of course, not exist without Marla Mindelle, but far and away my favorite Celine has been Nicole Parker. She brought the sort of hysterical celebrity impression that you’d expect from an alum of MadTV while still delivering Elphaba-level vocals. Lena Hall was dynamite in Little Shop of Horrors: she acted the role just as well as Tammy Blanchard, if not better, but blew the roof off with her vocals. The unusually long runs of Chicago and the Roundabout Cabaret have led to some of contemporary Broadway’s juiciest replacements, but Kander and Ebb’s Kiss of the Spider Woman also gave us the star (re)making performance of Vanessa Williams and the highly underrated Maria Conchita Alonso in the title role; Howard McGillin as Molina; and Brian Mitchell, as he was then known, as Valentin. Mitchell was so thrilling, he blew Crivello out of the water. For as frequently (and often deservingly) as its stunt casting is maligned, Chicago has also given us a slew of legitimate star turns from replacements, including the Roxies of Karen Ziemba, Charlotte d’Amboise, Bebe Neuwirth (a triumph of talent over miscasting), Sandy Duncan, Belle Callaway, and Bianca Marroquin; the Velmas of Deidre Goodwin, Ute Lemper, Ruthie Henshall, Jasmine Guy, Vicki Lewis, and Donna Marie Asbury; the Billy Flynns of Brent Barrett and Clarke Peters; and the Matron Mama Mortons of Carol Woods, Camille Saviola, Alix Korey, Jinkx Monsoon, and Lillias White. I don’t feel the Roundabout Cabaret ever successfully replaced Alan Cumming, but, across its two iterations, I saw a slew of fantastic Sally Bowleses, including Jennifer Jason Leigh, Mary McCormack, Linda Romoff (an understudy who often got billed as the star between celebrities and was better than most of them), Emma Stone, and Sienna Miller. Carole Shelley and Dick Latessa were probably my favorite Scheider and Schultz from the production, but Blair Brown and Larry Keith were also great. Some other replacements I’ve loved: Aaron Lazaar in The Light in the Piazza; Darren Criss in Hedwig; Lorraine Bracco in The Graduate; Bernadete Peters and Elaine Stritch (though I understand she was very inconsistent) in A Little Night Music; Harvey Fierstein (initially—as he continued in his run, he got far too broad) and Andrea Martin in Fiddler on the Roof; Noah Galvin in Dear Evan Hansen. |
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