Misery

[edjames]

There;s a new Annie on Broadway and she's ain't singing Tomorrow!!!

Based on the Stephen Kind novel, Bruce Willis and Laurie Metcalf star in this thriller. Do I really have to tell you the plot? We've all read the book or seen the movie.

All I can say is that Metcalf is FABULOUS! I loved her performance. Willis is good, and there were a couple of whoops moments in this early preview performance. Nothing serious and nothing distracting from the tense dramatic story. I tell ya when Metcalf gets out the sledge hammer...lookout!

Thoroughly enjoyable. I hour and 40 minutes...no intermission.

Should be a smash.

[edjames]

Sorry Brian but I think you're a bit confused and perhaps did not fully understand my post.

 

I was reviewing MISERY, the dramatic thriller play, ... not ANNIE, the musical.

The Annie I was referring to is Annie Wilkes, the lead character in the play.

 

ED

[MrMiniver]

After Kathy Bates and the movie, I doubt I could ever see anyone else in it again.

[+ Robster]

I'd love to see this. Laurie Metcalf is a brilliant actress, and a great choice to play Annie Wilkes. And I'd pay good money to see Bruce Willis get hobbled.

 

Rob

[+ nycman]

I saw it last week. I thought it was OK.

 

I love Metcalf and she is pretty great...in a role we ALL associate with Kathy Bates...and always will.

It was brave of her to take on the role and I think she does an extremely admirable job of making it her own.

 

I thought Bruce was a dud. When she breaks his legs...he basically says "ouch". Dude!, she just broke both

your god damned legs...with a sledgehammer...and we've been waiting for this moment all night...it's the fucking

climax of the show....SCREAM BLOODY MURDER!......it sounded more like he stubbed his toe.

 

He just doesn't deliver...at all.

 

I seriously doubt it will be a smash...unless Bruce suddenly learns to act.

[MrMiniver]

Bruce Willis is a fine actor, he's just not a stage actor, he's a film actor. Some can do both, some can do one or the other. Look at Audra MacDonald's multiple failures on the small screen. She doesn't translate outside the theater. The reverse is true with Willis. Great charisma onscreen but it doesn't translate to the stage. It doesn't mean he "can't act" it's just a different medium. Some can, some can't.

[foxy]

Seeing Misery this week. Will be interested in Bruce's performance. I wonder if he and daughter Rumor, also on Broadway, compare notes? I'm sure Laurie Metcalf will be a terror and fun to watch.

[foxy]

Sorry to say Bruce totally had no stage presence. His performance most of the time was barely above a whisper. Not done for any dramatic effect. He just can't project his voice in a theater production. I hate miking but really wished he had some help. But he was a dud. Laurie Metcalf carried the show. She was good but overall I didn't think this was a must see show. Many empty seats.

[edjames]

And yet....it's making big bucks...not Lion king or Wicked big bucks but yet the NYTimes had this to say today:

 

Of course, Halloween is all about the big scare, and the scariest show on Broadway — a theatrical adaptation of Stephen King’s “Misery” — was an exception: The play, starring Bruce Willis and Laurie Metcalf, grossed $906,961 in eight preview performances.

[foxy]

Well I'm happy for all involved. I'm sure Bruce can use the extra $$$$. But yesterday I was sitting in row L of the orchestra. Behind me and even in the front there were many empty seats. Of course it's still in preview and seats may be filled after opening night. We shall see. Later while having dinner I told my young server that I had just seen Misery. I asked if she was familiar with the movie or the book.? She said no. I asked her if she knew who Laurie Metcalfe was? She said no. I asked if she knew who Bruce Willis was? She did. So the theater as we know is mostly supported by tourists and grey haired people (me). If they don't fill the seats who will? Having said that I hope it will be a success.

[foxy]

I misspelled Laurie Metcalf's name. Sorry for the E. And in the play the typewriter has a missing N. Make of that what you will.

[MrMiniver]

This reminds me of a few years ago when I went to see the revival of Equus (with the late lamented Richard Griffiths) with Daniel Radcliffe as the young man. This is a serious play, one that requires quite a degree of intelligence to understand. Well, I'd say the theater was 1/3 filled with squealing little teenaged girls (who are bad enough on their own) who were obviously fans of Harry Potter. They were snapping selfies with their phones and squealed like pigs in mud when Mr. Radcliffe was completely naked. I seriously doubt they understood a single word of the play.

 

One of the problems (and there are so many) with the current Broadway theater scene is that the unions have made it so expensive to put on a show that producers are rarely willing to take a risk on a play with a cast of unknowns. So many shows are "stunt casted" with names who usually come from TV or film. Some work out, but many others like Bruce Willis don't. But they draw in the audiences, so that's all that matters, I suppose.

[actor61]

Bruce Willis is a fine actor, he's just not a stage actor, he's a film actor. Some can do both, some can do one or the other. Look at Audra MacDonald's multiple failures on the small screen. She doesn't translate outside the theater. The reverse is true with Willis. Great charisma onscreen but it doesn't translate to the stage. It doesn't mean he "can't act" it's just a different medium. Some can, some can't.

I have to disagree with you. In my opinion, Bruce Willis is NOT a "fine actor" in any medium. I find him annoying all the time, no matter what he's doing, even on talk shows. He was kinda sorta cute at the very beginning of his career in that series he did with Cybill Shepard but after that - yuck. Sorry - I'm cranky this morning. The prunes haven't worked yet.

[MrMiniver]

I have to disagree with you. In my opinion, Bruce Willis is NOT a "fine actor" in any medium. I find him annoying all the time, no matter what he's doing, even on talk shows. He was kinda sorta cute at the very beginning of his career in that series he did with Cybill Shepard but after that - yuck. Sorry - I'm cranky this morning. The prunes haven't worked yet.

 

That's an opinion, not a fact. You can't possibly argue that Bruce Willis hasn't been a very successful film and television actor. He certainly has been for more than 25 years. In the niche he has chosen, he's been a fine actor. Could he do more outside that narrow range? Who knows. He either doesn't want to or doesn't get offered those kinds of parts.

[edjames]

Michael Reidel from the NYPost reports this in today's newspaper...ouch!

 

 

ENTERTAINMENT

 

 

Pacino’s not alone: Willis needs an earpiece to remember his lines too

By Michael Riedel

 

November 5, 2015 | 8:51pm

 

 

Modal Trigger

Bruce Willis stars in "Misery" on Broadway. Photo: Walter McBride/WireImage

Theatergoers racing through Shubert Alley to make curtain time, beware! If you’re not careful, you might trip over all those wires piping lines to actors with memory lapses.

 

As I reported last week, Al Pacino, star of David Mamet’s “Moose Murders” — I mean “China Doll”— is being fed dialogue through his Bluetooth earpiece, with cables running to the seven — yes, seven! — teleprompters on the set.

 

Over at “The Gin Game,” James Earl Jones and Cicely Tyson are, I’m told, wired up. But she’s 90 and he’s 84, for heaven’s sake. And they’re adorable.

 

Less forgivable is Bruce Willis, who sports an earpiece the size of a cellphone circa 1984 in “Misery.” He’s only 60, a spring chicken in Broadway years. Spies who’ve seen it say it feels like a play by Harold Pinter. The excellent Laurie Metcalf says a line and then there … is … a … pause before Willis responds.

 

“The script is changing and he’s nervous,” a source says. “But he’s working very hard.”

 

Metcalf is being extremely patient with her co-star. But she’s the one with the sledgehammer, so it might be wise for Willis to get off the f–king book!

 

Nobody will openly discuss the increasing prevalence of earpieces on Broadway. As one press agent says, “Theater is an illusion. And it’s all part of the magic that actors now look like they know their lines.” And yes, he snickered after he said that.

 

But everyone agrees: The technology is getting so good that at some point actors will be spared the drudgery of having to memorize the script.

 

We’ve come a long way from Mary Martin struggling through “Legends!” in 1986. Wearing a primitive earpiece during a Washington, DC, performance, she heard taxi dispatches instead of cues: “Take me to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, please!”

 

Marian Seldes had a small speaker installed in her bleacher chair on the set of “Deuce” in 2007. At an early preview there was an awkward pause. Marian turned to her chair and shouted, “What?”

 

Angela Lansbury, who’s open about using the devices, covered them up with Princess Leia-like hair muffins in 2009’s “Blithe Spirit.” She was brilliant, and the audience was none the wiser. But one night there was a glitch and Lansbury rode over co-star Jayne Atkinson’s laugh line. The next night, standing in the wings with Christine Ebersole, Atkinson said, “I wonder if Angie will step on my laugh line again tonight.” Ebersole replied: “We’d better check with Houston.”

 

Tyson is a master with the earpiece. She wore one in “A Trip to Bountiful,” and was fed not only lines but blocking. Did it matter? Not a bit. She won the Tony that year. One night, however, she paused and asked, “Wadie, Wadie — where are you?” “Wadie,” it turned out, was Wade, her feeder, whose voice in her ear had momentarily cut out.

 

If actors of a certain age need the devices to extend their glorious stage careers, fine. But they can too easily become crutches for Hollywood stars, who have to learn only a few pages of dialogue at a time for a film. But if they’re going to be even halfway decent on stage, they have to sustain a character over 100 pages — and that means learning the lines.

 

As for “China Doll,” I hear Mamet, who disappeared after the first preview, has returned to the Schoenfeld. But given the number of teleprompters on the set, maybe Pacino would be better served by a cable repairman than a playwright.

[foxy]

Sadly it's not just learning the lines that failed Bruce. He had no charisma at all during the performance I saw. I think doing a Broadway show at this point in his career was a big mistake. Whatever he manages to bring to the big screen is lost on a stage. If he did this for his ego to prove he's a real actor it only showed his limited range. Go back to Hollywood Bruce.

[MrMiniver]

Sadly it's not just learning the lines that failed Bruce. He had no charisma at all during the performance I saw. I think doing a Broadway show at this point in his career was a big mistake. Whatever he manages to bring to the big screen is lost on a stage. If he did this for his ego to prove he's a real actor it only showed his limited range. Go back to Hollywood Bruce.

 

I doubt he did it for ego. I suspect they're paying him a lot of money. Blame the producers for not getting a real stage actor. Don't blame the poor actor for giving it a try. Isn't the show still in previews??

 

Love Michael Riedel by the way. He takes no prisoners!

[foxy]

I'm sure what they are paying Bruce would be a big paycheck to us mortals but compared with a Hollywood paycheck I'm sure it's just peanuts. Plus Bruce is not just some new young actor desperate for parts. He strikes me as a pretty savvy guy not easily manipulated by producers or agents. As for ego, the few actors I've met seem to have that in spades. Along with being very insecure at the same time. That's what makes them actors I suppose.

[actor61]

That's an opinion, not a fact. You can't possibly argue that Bruce Willis hasn't been a very successful film and television actor. He certainly has been for more than 25 years. In the niche he has chosen, he's been a fine actor. Could he do more outside that narrow range? Who knows. He either doesn't want to or doesn't get offered those kinds of parts.

Being a "successful" actor and a "good"actor are 2 very different things. I acknowledge that Willis is very successful; I will never acknowledge that he's any good.

[MrMiniver]

I'm sure what they are paying Bruce would be a big paycheck to us mortals but compared with a Hollywood paycheck I'm sure it's just peanuts. Plus Bruce is not just some new young actor desperate for parts. He strikes me as a pretty savvy guy not easily manipulated by producers or agents. As for ego, the few actors I've met seem to have that in spades. Along with being very insecure at the same time. That's what makes them actors I suppose.

 

Give him some credit for trying to stretch himself. He wanted to try something different. It doesn't appear to be working out but he gets points in my book for refusing to stay in the box that everyone wants to put him in. Kudos to him.

[MrMiniver]

Being a "successful" actor and a "good"actor are 2 very different things. I acknowledge that Willis is very successful; I will never acknowledge that he's any good.

 

That's your choice, of course, but you're wrong. In his genre, he's terrific. Period.

[foxy]

I think anyone who can stand on a stage and perform has a lot of guts. It would terrify me. I think when someone like Willis whose been so successful in Hollywod and tv, he has balls to try Broadway. Maybe he is like a racehorse holding back till opening night. Whenever I see a play I really want everyone to succeed. He has a lot of charm and charisma. Hopefully that will start to emerge on stage. BTW Misery has already hit the tkts booth so it's not selling out yet. Time will tell. Good luck Bruce!

[MrMiniver]

If you want to see REALLY BAD ACTING in the theater right now .... George Takei. I wish someone could explain his talent to me. He makes Bruce Willis look like Alfred Lunt.

It seems to me he's made a career out of being gay but having absolutely no talent whatsoever. Really. Would anyone go see him if it weren't for the "I'm the gay guy from Star Trek" schtick?

[Cooper]

If you want to see REALLY BAD ACTING in the theater right now .... George Takei. I wish someone could explain his talent to me. He makes Bruce Willis look like Alfred Lunt.

 

Having seen Bruce Willis in Misery and George Takei in Allegiance, I respectably disagree with you. Takei puts his heart and soul into his role. His acting is good and believable. He makes a good connection with the audience and earned his standing ovation. I can't say the same for Willis.

[actor61]

If you want to see REALLY BAD ACTING in the theater right now .... George Takei. I wish someone could explain his talent to me. He makes Bruce Willis look like Alfred Lunt.

It seems to me he's made a career out of being gay but having absolutely no talent whatsoever. Really. Would anyone go see him if it weren't for the "I'm the gay guy from Star Trek" schtick?

I don't care what you think about Takei or Willis, the fact that you know who Alfred Lunt was is thrilling enough!!!