Bernadette Peters

[N13]

In the thread on Pippin, Bernadette Peters was brought up as an example of over singing the role of Mama Rose in "Gypsy." She has ruined more shows for me than any other actress I can think of. Although I loved her in "Dames at Sea" and thought she gave a great performance in "Sunday in the Park with George" (A Sondheim show that I hated!!!), I have never liked any other show I have seen her in. In the last revival of "A Little Night Music" she, along with Elaine Stritch was woefully miscast. Her mugging did not fit the character and ruined one of my favorite shows. She was a disaster in "Follies." Unlike Dorothy Collins in the role, she had no shadings and was a one note bore. Her "Losing My Mind" almost made me lose mind with anger!

 

I don't know what makes people decide that mediocre performers are great Divas and decide to give roaring ovations if they even blow their nose. Liza Minelli, when not directed by Bob Fosse, falls into this category for me also. Is our need to cheer so out of whack that we will cheer anything whether it deserves it or not?

 

I am distressed that there seem to be no great leading ladies in the same class as Barbara Cook, Gwen Verdon, Streisand, Merman, Martin, Chita Rivera and Betty Buckley.

 

Of course, this is all my personal opinion - but I stand by it!

[edjames]

You might be pleased to know that Dames At Sea is to be revived this coming season (2014)!

 

This from brodway.com:

The first-ever Broadway production of Dames at Sea will sail onto the Great White Way in 2014, directed and choreographed by three-time Tony nominee Randy Skinner. Featuring a book and lyrics by George Haimsohn and Robin Miller and music by Jim Wise, the production will include musical direction by Rob Berman. Casting, dates and a Broadway theater will be announced shortly.

 

Skinner’s production of Dames at Sea debuted at the Infinity Theatre Company in Annapolis, MD, in 2012, starring Megan Kelley, Eric Huffman and Darien Crago. Dames at Sea originally opened at the Bouwerie Lane Theatre in 1968 in a production starring Bernadette Peters, then transferred to the Theater de Lys (now the Lucille Lortel Theatre) in 1969, where it played for 575 performances.

 

Dames at Sea tells the story of Ruby, who steps off a bus from Utah and into her first Broadway show. But hours before the opening night curtain is set to rise, the cast learns that their theater is being demolished. With the help of some adoring sailors, Ruby and the cast set a plan in motion to perform the show in a naval battleship.

 

As a choreographer, Skinner garnered Tony nominations for Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, 42nd Street and Ain’t Broadway Grand. His additional Broadway choreography credits include State Fair, a show he co-directed, and After the Night and the Music.

[actor61]

I am totally in agreement with you about Bernadette Peters but I never say much because she is so adored by the B'wayites. I saw her in "Annie Get Your Gun" for which she received her second Tony, and hated her. I returned to see Reba Macintyre and couldn't believe it was the same show. Reba was magnificent and should have been handed a Tony as well. She was hilariously funny, vulnerable, feisty, gorgeous and sang the hell out of it. I then saw Marilu Henner in the National Tour and she was better than Peters too, even though she's a lousy singer. Peters was so miscast in "Follies" that it bordered on stunt casting. I saw Victoria Clark sing "Losing My Mind" in the Los Angeles production and it was bone chilling.

 

I miss the old divas too. Barbara Cook is sublime but so impossible to work with that it's a good thing she found a second career as a solo artisit. She's lovely in the concert version of "Follies". Nobody dances like Verdon, Rivera or Reinking anymore. There are technically wondrous dancers on B'way but they have no heart or personality. Bebe Neuwirth gave it her best shot but after "Chicago", there just wasn't a show good enough for her. "Addams Family" was atrocious and not worthy of her.

 

I think the new crop of stars is great but they unfortunately don't have the material that was available to the legends in the Golden Days of B'way. Audra MacDonald is stupendous in anything she does. Her Bess was definitive. Sutton Foster is amazingly versatile and that voice just wraps you up completely. Chenoweth sings better than any of them and can also be very funny, ditto Menzel. I was so hoping that Anika Noni Rose would become a B'way superstar but she left for movies and t.v. pretty quickly. Laura Benanti could be a legend but she has also departed for t.v. with hardly a look back. As much as I hated Lupone's performance in "Gypsy", her chemistry with Benanti was hypnotic and Benanti's performance of the strip in the second act was show stopping.

[+ WilliamM]

I agree that Broadway in the Golden Age was a place where America's greatest popular composers and lyricists wrote songs specifically for the stage's greatest stars. Also, production costs were low enough that stars could initiate musicals themselves and co-produce ("The Sound of Music" and "Peter Pan" are examples). So today's performers are at a huge disadvantage.

 

On Barbara Cook, I believe she will remembered more for his solo concert career than her Broadway shows, as wonderful as she was in "The Music Man," "Candide" and my favorite, "She Loves Me." I would have disagreed about Bernadette Peters if I had not seen "Follies" and, to a less degree, "Gypsy." I liked Peters very much in "Sunday in The Park...," "Mack and Mabel" and "Song and Dance." But, those shows were decades ago. I must be the only person who liked Reba McEntire much more in the concert "South Pacific" (available on DVD) than "Annie Get Your Gun." In the latter musical, I thought that McEntire was still learning how to perform in Broadway shows.

[skynyc]

This thread makes me laugh...because I do love Ms. Peters, but admit that I haven't loved her work much lately.

I sadly missed Dames at Sea and Mack and Mabel, but have an early eponymous LP that she made, which I enjoyed...one of my first purchases by a non-pop vocalist.

 

Fell in love with her in Sunday in the Park which I saw the first week I moved to NY. Made me feel like a New Yorker to know who she was from her previous recordings.

 

Loved her in Song and Dance, and then loved the show again with Betty Buckley...first time I realized how differently a show could be interpreted by replacement stars.

 

And loved Ms. Peters in Into the Woods and Good-bye Girl, though the latter show was really flawed.

 

And then Annie Get Your Gun and Gypsy. Folks who read this Forum regularly know that there isn't much I don't like, (except those without theater etiquette,) but I didn't care for BP in Annie. Especially since I went back to see Reba and was blown away. (And the fact that BP's contract wouldn't allow anyone else to record that production was a loss to those of us who buy cast recordings.) (Although I was given a bootleg DVD of Ms. McIntyre's performance.) And while I really appreciated BP's take on Mama Rose...there was a sultry quality that I'd never seen or envisioned before, I didn't adore it. (However, I was head over heels for David Burtka, now married to Neil Patrick Harris, as Tulsa.)

 

And my adoration of the performances of Bernadette continues to decline. Didn't like Little Night Music, and hated Follies.

 

But I still love HER. Her connection to the theater community, her commitment to causes like Broadway Barks and Broadway Cares.

She's aging beautifully, and have never heard her sing in a smaller setting like Cafe Carlyle or Feinsteins...don't know if she does that.

 

It's sad that the theater doesn't have great divas anymore. Audra McDonnell comes back when she can from her work in Hollywood...I wonder if we'll ever see Kristen Chenoweth on stage again, other than concert evenings. I go out of my way to see anything with Rebecca Luker and Marin Mazzie, Randy Graff and Sutton Foster...(who will hopefully back for a revival of Violet now that Bunheads was cancelled.)

 

But I have a friend who has been a theater maniac since the 1940s, and I once asked him if he could go back and see just one show, what would it be, and he replied without a second's hesitation: "Anything with Ethel Merman."

[leigh.bess.toad]

However, I will never forget the night I was at home getting texts from NYTomcat when he was at Monster in NYC sitting around the piano bar and who walks in and sang show tunes with them the rest of the night but BP herself. I wish I could have been there with him for that night.

[+ WilliamM]

 

But I have a friend who has been a theater maniac since the 1940s, and I once asked him if he could go back and see just one show, what would it be, and he replied without a second's hesitation: "Anything with Ethel Merman."

 

I saw Ethel Merman in "Gypsy" when I was fifteen. I agree with your friend. If I had a second choice, it would be going back in time to the late 1970s and seeing the only concert Mary Martin and Ethel Merman ever performed together, aptly called "Together on Broadway." It's very difficult to find, but luckily there is a limited edition two record album of the concert, which occasionally appears on Ebay