Two On The Aisle features Broadway Theatre critics Charles Gross & Leslie (Hoban) Blake covering the New York Theatre scene in a Siskel & Ebert fashion. Gross & Goodman cover the latest Broadway hits (or are the misses?) and when they can't agree on a show..LOOK OUT!
Thank you Charles and Leslie. This production when I saw it in London is the ‘Emperor In His New Clothes’. It bears no relation to the Weimar Republic and what it would have been like in a ‘cabaret’ of the time. And Sally has been turned into a hard faced grotesque. Critics swooned over it, and audiences fell for it like lemmings, but it really is a travesty.
I love that at the end she made a point to call him by his name, especially after mixing it up before. it's such a personal touch and it goes such a long way. Truly a class act.
Tamara changed her name to 'de Lempicka' and pronounced it as in the show in her lifetime. The de Lempicka family pronounces it this way as well. It is incorrect to pronounce it the Polish way, which, by the way, you should probably say more with a W sound to be accurate if you're trying.
I saw Carol Channing in the original "GENTLEMEN pREFER bLONDES" WHEN i WAS IN hIGH sCHOOL And I was sorry they picked Marilyn Monroe for the movie version . They changes the script so much that you wouldn't think it was the same story . But that's Hollywood for you .
From what you have said, the show surely evolved to something amazing. Look at the clothes worn by Mary and Charlie. They correspond to each other. To me, the 2 characters elevate Frank to bring him to the fore. Frank is the main character. In this production, he is more than a one-dimensional character. Giving Gussie greater importance also adds to Frank as a person. I'd like to hear what the 2 reviewers thought after actually seeing the show on Broadway. I think some of their comments might change.
I saw the original, the second incarnation with George Hearn, and then with Angela and George. I also worked on a few costume pieces for the original production.Just saw this production and I was very disappointed with the 'slapstick' and Annaleigh's brutal accent, but agree, she chewed scenery and took it a bit far.. FYI, the choreography and movement was okay. Just not as stunning as the original. I basically missed the /size/ of the original productions. This production was toned down/slanted to humour and the drama was lost.
Thank you Leslie and co. I look forward to more of your discussion and analysis of theatre events. As you’ll know there are a few tasty Sondheim shows coming up in London this autumn. Paul.
I think this critic got "Sugar" mixed up with "So Long 174th Street"; both starred Robert Morse, but it was the latter that ran 14 performances; "Sugar" ran 504, earning a small profit. This new "Some Like It Hot" will have to do a lot better than that just to make its money back, and despite rave reviews from the New York critics, audiences have been slow to catch on so far. It's always tricky, if not downright lazy, to piggyback off a classic title not yet in the public domain, particularly one as beloved as "Some Like It Hot," and alter it to conform to contemporary ideologies: loyalists will resent the changes. "Black and queer" is the current Broadway motif, and at least "A Strange Loop" had the guts to come in completely original.
You are using the term woke incorrectly. It's truly infuriating. If you're going to use "woke" in terms of AAVE African American vernacular do your research. thank you.
Nomination for the Pulitzer was once a mark of prestige, now a mark of leftist agenda in disguise. Every liberal cliche from the last six years was packed into 90 minutes, from a cringy pre-play acknowledgement/apology for being on Kumeyaay Indian land (a specious statement as they were a tribe which traversed the county seasonally) to a more ridiculous spotlighted We-hardly-knew-ye apology to black martyr/criminal/drug abuser/hero George Floyd. Ironically, after this subservient groveling, she mentions the Stop Asian Hate movement, yet neglects, like a good liberal, to mention the impetus for the violence being black men, deflected earlier by trying to aim all "Asian hate" at President Trump for rightly associating Covid with China. One interesting psychological moment came in dividing the audience into pretend vaxxers and anti-vaxxers, and then shaming and blaming the unpoked for selfishly not adhering to now-proven corrupt "experts" and in so not-doing, killing millions or billions, or whatever total increases the passion for pokes. It was interesting in that it showed how easily and mindlessly the left are manipulated, as this was something she deeply believed; the faith of the godless in blindly following their leaders. In an array of post-Floyd footage of BLM, she laughably calls the protests peaceful, newsreels of that group killing and beating people while burning cities in assumed short supply. Yet film of the dozens of people involved in the FBI-led Jan. 6 weaponless coup must have been easily gotten. She performed the play with energy and obvious talent, but in the end it is still insulting propaganda, a requisite for the current state of entertainment.
