rec.arts.theatre.musicals

Yes, I agree that Walsh's Joanne was a cold fish who could have used
more charm and sense of fun to counteract the bleak side of her
character, and make her come-on more believable. I'd like to see a
really sexy middle-aged actress play the role ... which would help us
understand how such a nasty drunk could have captured all those
husbands and retained her charisma and confidence over the year.
Highly attractive people are generally able to get away with much
worse behavior than plainer ones are, . [insert misbehaving movie
star of your choice].

Furth's book for MERRILY has all the same deficiencies: sketchy
characters you don't care about, passive men, nasty women. Furth's
one skill seems to be coming up with bitchy, campy one-liners, like
MERRILY's (quoting from memory) "They're going to play their song and
then you're going to want to take poison because there'll be nothing
left to live for." That's a pretty slim "Dramatists' Toolkit" ...
(which happens to be a very fine book by RATM's own dgsweet).


On Feb 28, 1:11 pm, Robert Bouton wrote:
>
> Except that Barbara Walsh's thin-lipped and arid creature was so
> devoid of sexuality, it seemed more grotesque. When I saw Karen Mason
> do the role, over a decade ago, you could see the a possibility of
> lustful attraction there. In the theatre, Walsh didn't seem the least
> bit fun, and their dialogue interminable.
>
> > -- The actress who played April was so good, she made this
> > usually-peripheral character seem like the female lead.
>
> Lucky for us all, she IS the female lead in an upcoming new musical on
> Broadway.