| Author |
Message |
|
| Marj |
 Posted: Mon Jan 15, 2007 3:04 pm |
 |
|
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 10497
Location: Manhattan
|
| Oh and Mo, sorry about the the word "fan." I didn't mean it literally. I just meant that you and Joe seemed to like the music better than I. |
|
|
| Back to top |
   
|
| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Mon Jan 15, 2007 4:34 pm |
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
|
billyweeds wrote: mo_flixx wrote:
Beyonce' was never much more than a fashion plate in the movie. She never made it to diva status.
You sound like her career is over rather than on the rise, which like it or not it is. The problem with Beyonce Knowles in Dreamgirls, and to a lesser degree with Sheryl Lee Ralph (a more talented lady) is that the role of Deena has always been ridiculously underwritten, perhaps in an effort to avoid litigation from Diana Ross. Anyone who reads the trash bio Call Me Miss Ross by J. Randy Taborelli knows that Diana Ross was no angel (to put it very mildly), and the fact that Dreamgirls makes Deena the next thing to an innocent bystander has always for me been the most serious flaw in the show, even more damaging than the very mediocre score.
Yes. Yes. Yes. |
_________________
You've got a great brain. You should keep it in your head.
-Topher |
|
| Back to top |
|
| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Mon Jan 15, 2007 4:34 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
|
| Except for the part about the mediocre score. |
_________________
You've got a great brain. You should keep it in your head.
-Topher |
|
| Back to top |
|
| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Mon Jan 15, 2007 4:42 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
|
[quote="billyweeds"][quote="billyweeds"]billyweeds wrote: mo_flixx wrote:
Beyonce' was never much more than a fashion plate in the movie. She never made it to diva status.
I have to say (and I'd love comments on this--Joe? Marj?) that the effort to get Jennifer Hudson an Oscar by putting her role in the "supporting actress" category is revolting manipulation IMO. Hers is the leading role in Dreamgirls and always has been. She has the big story arc; she is the one the audience identifies with; she is the lead. If Hudson wins, and she probably will, her victory should have an asterisk next to it, as should Patty Duke's in The Miracle Worker, Walter Matthau's in The Fortune Cookie, and several others.
The movie has Beyonce Knowles's and Jamie Foxx's names above the title. Thus they are the designated leads. Hudson and Murphy are below the title, thus supporting cast. Granted, this is ridiculous, considering Hudson's central role (Effie is the lead), but that's the billing.
Beyonce is pissed, by the way. For a while I didn't know if I could share the info, but now she's started to say things in the press like "Well, I could have gotten fat and taken the other role if I'd wanted to." I suspect she was sold a bill of goods about the movie being refocused on Deena's character, while in fact it stayed pretty true to the Broadway structure. |
_________________
You've got a great brain. You should keep it in your head.
-Topher |
|
| Back to top |
|
| mo_flixx |
| Posted: Mon Jan 15, 2007 5:56 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 30 May 2004
Posts: 12533
|
[quote="Joe Vitus"][quote="billyweeds"]billyweeds wrote: billyweeds wrote: mo_flixx wrote:
Beyonce' was never much more than a fashion plate in the movie. She never made it to diva status.
I have to say (and I'd love comments on this--Joe? Marj?) that the effort to get Jennifer Hudson an Oscar by putting her role in the "supporting actress" category is revolting manipulation IMO. Hers is the leading role in Dreamgirls and always has been. She has the big story arc; she is the one the audience identifies with; she is the lead. If Hudson wins, and she probably will, her victory should have an asterisk next to it, as should Patty Duke's in The Miracle Worker, Walter Matthau's in The Fortune Cookie, and several others.
She also probably got a LOT more money than Hudson.
The movie has Beyonce Knowles's and Jamie Foxx's names above the title. Thus they are the designated leads. Hudson and Murphy are below the title, thus supporting cast. Granted, this is ridiculous, considering Hudson's central role (Effie is the lead), but that's the billing.
Beyonce is pissed, by the way. For a while I didn't know if I could share the info, but now she's started to say things in the press like "Well, I could have gotten fat and taken the other role if I'd wanted to." I suspect she was sold a bill of goods about the movie being refocused on Deena's character, while in fact it stayed pretty true to the Broadway structure. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| mo_flixx |
| Posted: Mon Jan 15, 2007 5:57 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 30 May 2004
Posts: 12533
|
RE: Beyonce'.
I wrote that she probably also got a lot more money than Hudson.
sorry - no edit button to make correction. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 3:44 am |
|
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
|
| I think we're all going to be slipping on banana peals without an edit button. |
_________________
You've got a great brain. You should keep it in your head.
-Topher |
|
| Back to top |
|
| mo_flixx |
| Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 9:47 am |
|
|
|
Joined: 30 May 2004
Posts: 12533
|
This is playing at Wellington, NZ's tiny, black box BATS Theatre. Wellington has some of the best experimental theatre I've ever come across. BATS is where I saw the outrageous comedy "My Brother and I Are Porn Stars" (hope I've got the title right). Makes me want to jump on a plane right away.
------------------------------------
The Viagra Monologues
Written and Directed by Geraldine Brophy
at BATS, Wellington
Until 20 Jan 2007
[90 mins]
Reviewed by Mary Anne Bourke, 11 Jan 2007
If you thought this show might be overloaded with jokes about the little blue pill that makes men smile and woman groan the world over, you're in for a pleasant surprise. These dramatic monologues run the gamut of a male sexuality, albeit fictional, that is so thorough and wide-ranging it leaves little to be desired. The spam-spawning drug doesn't gets a look in - until the end, of course.
It's interesting that this penetrating stuff - a 'male version' of Eve Ensler's runaway hit, 'The Vagina Monologues' - has been written by a woman...There could be a thesis in that... By a woman... Suffice to say, Geraldine Brophy must be applauded for her chutzpah in doing the job on men's experience in sex. That she pulls it off so well, with such graphic flair that we're carried along, completely convinced by some quite outlandish propositions, and with the full support of any male you'd care to consult, either on or offstage, is a fantastic achievement. The work's strength seems to lie in the range of character types and the aptness of the idioms with which these boys give voice to their feelings about the sex they've had. Or not.
The three seasoned performers here seem to relish these meaty roles. We are won over from the start by Paul Barrett's earnest, chattering 3-year-old who is waiting for a penis to grow on his baby sister. As the various roles interweave, Barrett returns as a 'meat'-hunting gay man in a nightclub, an Australian in a men's support group (ho ho), a sickeningly loyal, battered husband and a widower with a baby daughter.
Paul McLaughlin has most of the sunnier roles and has a lot fun with 'his blokes': doing the 'down, brown' rhythms of a white teen rapper giving his wrist a professional-level, muscle-relieving shakedown between wanks ('You gotta work out your aggro on your brick'). He also plays a car salesman slash male prostitute, a 'good, keen man' wracked with emphysema in the pub and, by contrast - intense and scary, downstage - as a tortured priest telling of his own childhood abuse.
Mateship and father-son relationships see Eddie Campbell create some very poignant moments, too, both as older men - a returned serviceman remembering a fateful visit to a Cairo brothel during WWII, a businessman mugged by a kid who reminds him of a lost son - and as a happy eight-year-old who idolises his father; to describe but a few.
Each story is enhanced by the monochromatic simplicity of Rob Larsen's lighting scheme. Together with Ross Joblin's set of ubiquitous boxes, the extremely minimalist design focuses our attention on the human person, the mound of flesh and blood, in the suit on the boards in front of us.
This play - Brophy's first - premiered at the Herald Theatre in Auckland in 2003 and this outing finds it honed almost to perfection. I'm not going to tell you how parts are drawn together at the end but the piece has a very satisfying shape. I do think it could still be improved by a final snipping of what you could call the deadheads - where lines or moves remain to strive for an effect that has already been achieved, and so detract. (An example would be the RSA man whistling the Colonel Bogey/'River Kwai' tune as the outro of his piece.) It is a mark of quality here that cliché and the cheesy pun stick out like the proverbials.
But this baby - more vital than its handle might imply, packed with laughs and with a big, warm heart - certainly deserves the rapturous reception it got from the audience last night. I think it's got legs. It's got universal appeal. I reckon it'll be bounding across the Tasman before you know it. And onto the West End. I don't see why not. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| billyweeds |
| Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 10:26 am |
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
|
Joe Vitus wrote:
Beyonce is pissed, by the way. For a while I didn't know if I could share the info.
Where did you get the info? |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 2:54 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
|
| The one I quoted was in the news. |
_________________
You've got a great brain. You should keep it in your head.
-Topher |
|
| Back to top |
|
| carrobin |
| Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 3:06 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
|
| Hey, who wouldn't be pissed, if you're the big-name star of a major musical film and the no-name costar gets all the adulation and awards? I can see her point. It would take maturity and self-confidence not to be pissed, and few stars her age could claim those assets. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| billyweeds |
| Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 3:11 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
|
| Of course, anyone who has ever seen Dreamgirls and thinks Deena is going to steal the spotlight from Effie is on some level delusional. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 3:14 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
|
| It is sort of like taking the role of Grace Farrell in Annie and thinking the plot will be re-written around you. |
_________________
You've got a great brain. You should keep it in your head.
-Topher |
|
| Back to top |
|
| billyweeds |
| Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 3:25 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
|
Joe Vitus wrote: It is sort of like taking the role of Grace Farrell in Annie and thinking the plot will be re-written around you.
Yes. Although if Ann Reinking in the John Huston version could have been recast with Audra McDonald from the Rob Marshall version, maybe that would have been a good idea.
Talk about going from the ridiculous to the sublime: Huston 0, Marshall 10. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| billyweeds |
| Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2007 3:26 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
|
billyweeds wrote: Joe Vitus wrote: It is sort of like taking the role of Grace Farrell in Annie and thinking the plot will be re-written around you.
Yes. Although if Ann Reinking in the John Huston version could have been recast with Audra McDonald from the Rob Marshall remake, maybe that would have been a good idea.
Talk about going from the ridiculous to the sublime: Huston 0, Marshall 10. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
