Its Tonys awards time again, The 67th Annual Tonys Awards at Radio City Music Hall June 9th, 2013 with One of the best hosts ever Neil Patrick Harris (sorry Hugh Jackman). See other post for all the details.
Ok, now who missed out..How about Bette Midler, comes back to The Great White Way after 40 years to star as Sue Mengers (super agent to the stars) in a one woman show “I’ll Eat You Last” no nodds here, nothing for our Bette so Tony Voters Watch Out..Oh Bette don’t take it to heart, most theatregoers who have paid to see you play “Annie”. Welcome back don’t make it another 40 years.
Now talk about Drama not one nodd for Colm Toibin’s “Testament of Mary” or for Fiona Shaw who plays Mary also Alan who returned to Broadway?? Yes its Alan Cumming’s, not even a lookin for “Macbeth” a role almost written for Alan in mind or out of mind. What about Alec Baldwin in Orphans, maybe Shia Labeouf has big pulling power with the voters. Look Out…
Ok just some words about the above
New York Times – “Testament of Mary” Fiona Shaw
By BEN BRANTLEY
Published: April 22, 2013
The Mary whose testament we have gathered to hear is the mother of Jesus. And she wants to be allowed, for once, to tell her story on her terms, and to appear to us unencumbered by the signs and symbols that history and devotion have layered upon her.
A great actress and a fine, trenchant script are struggling to assert themselves at the Walter Kerr Theater, where Colm Toibin’s Testament of Mary opened on Monday night. The ads for this production, directed by Deborah Warner, feature the play’s sole performer, Fiona Shaw, wearing what appears to be a crown of thorns, but as a muzzle.
Ms. Shaw gives us that woman, for sure. When she speaks of how memory is what fills her body now, instead of blood and bones, her eyes burn black. We feel that if we chose, we could see what she sees, but that the choice would hurt too much. Even Mary, as she says, had to look away when her son was dying; she wouldn’t have been able to survive otherwise.
New York Times – “I’ll Eat You Last” Bette Midler
By CHARLES ISHERWOOD
Published: April 24, 2013
In I’ll Eat You Last,†a delectable souffle of a solo show by John Logan that opened Wednesday night on Broadway, Bette Midler portrays the Hollywood agent Sue Mengers, who at the height of her reign in the 1970s.
It’s a heady sensation, thanks to the buoyant, witty writing of Mr. Logan (Red), the focused direction of Joe Mantello and above all to Ms. Midler, who gives the most lusciously entertaining performance of the Broadway season. Dropping names as if to the rhythm of a disco beat, snapping out wisecracks like acid-tipped darts that find the sweet spot every time, proffering profanity-laden advice about how to get ahead in show business: as the frank, brassy, foul-mouthed Mengers, who died in 2011, Ms. Midler cradles a spellbound audience in the palm of her hand from first joke to last toke. (Mengers’s love of celebrity was perhaps equaled only by her affection for marijuana.)
New York Times -“Macbeth” Alan Cumming
By CHARLES ISHERWOOD
Published: April 21, 2013
The Scottish play, or Macbeth as it is known to laymen and superstition-free theater folk, sounds more Scottish than usual in the Broadway production that opened on Sunday night at the Barrymore Theater. The murderous general of the title is portrayed by the Scotland-born Alan Cumming, whose rich, rolling accent brings a whiff of the green highlands with it.
The real novelty of this production lies elsewhere: Mr. Cumming does not just play Macbeth but also all of the other significant roles in what is essentially a one-man, one-act hurtle through this Shakespearean tragedy of ambition, murder and soul-corroding guilt, here set in the chilly chamber of a mental institution.
Watching him perform this personalized rendition of Macbeth, I was at times more intrigued by the battle going on between the serious actor and the shameless entertainer than I was by the tense struggles taking place in the divided mind of Macbeth, a noble warrior who knows that killing his king is an evil act, or by the scenes of seething conflict between Macbeth and his more ruthless wife, given a voluptuous sexual manipulativeness by Mr. Cumming.
The press is pretty good for all the shows and actors…Go Figure
