[quote]The Philharmonic and everyone but Byrne sounds so good in CAMELOT, it's disturbing. There was even extended applause for a song. Never seen a nervous, offbeat performance in a musical, even local productions. What exactly happened? Why do some of you blame Price?
I don't really blame him so much for Byrne's performance, I thought the whole thing was misdirected, and that conception of Mordred alone would have been enough to sink the show, in my opinion. But also, Price does bear some responsibility for Byrne, because Price is a starfucker, and if he weren't, maybe he and the music director would have been more careful about making sure Byrne could handle the singing, rather than just hiring him for his star name.
[quote]I do wonder what Mendes' full vision of Gypsy would have been like. I was a big fan of his Cabaret and Gypsy could benefit from a similar take, but what we ended up getting felt like a weird mix between Mendes trying to do something different and Laurents' more traditional staging and, like all dishes made with too many cooks in the kitchen, it wasn't very memorable or interesting.
At the time, I was surprised that Laurents had THAT much pull to insist on so much control over the production, even as the writer. Maybe his argument was that some of what Mendes wanted to do actually went against his writing? I wonder if he got the Dramatist's Guild involved, or if the production just made changes in deference to Laurents and because they didn't want him badmouthing the production to the press -- which he wound up doing anyway!
[quote]I still wonder what the hell happened with Linda Lavin as Rose. She seemed like a better match for the role than Daly did and, yet, she was sort of boring in the role. She just came across as shrill, whiny, and bratty with zero charm.
That doesn't accord with my memory of Lavin's performance. I recall her having lots of charm and humor when needed, but then she was really nasty when appropriate. I specifically remember there were one or two moments in the show when she very sarcastically imitated other characters' voices when they said things she didn't agree with, in a really nasty and whining tone. I hated the character in those moments, and I think I was supposed to.
