Patti Lupone on Madonna

[bostonman]

WilliamM it is interesting that you mention Mary Martin. Originally I had included her in my list but decided at the last minute to drop her. I NEVER liked her voice. To me she was always vocally terribly, terribly cute and often shrill.

 

I did like her, though I agree on the "cuteness" factor (in terms of persona as much as vocally), but I think some of the roles she played made that a little too easy to do. I do think she also could be quite warm though, both vocally and in personality.

[+ Gar1eth]

WilliamM it is interesting that you mention Mary Martin. Originally I had included her in my list but decided at the last minute to drop her. I NEVER liked your voice. To me she was always vocally terribly, terribly cute and often shrill.

 

I did like her, though I agree on the "cuteness" factor (in terms of persona as much as vocally), but I think some of the roles she played made that a little too easy to do. I do think she also could be quite warm though, both vocally and in personality.

 

I have nothing against cuteness. I was trying to remember whether I enjoyed her voice from the Peter Pan broadcasts. And frankly I was so young, I can't remember.

 

Gman

[+ WilliamM]

Despite her 'cute' public image, Mary Martin was a much more complicated person that Merman or Channing.

 

See David Kaufman's Martin biography, "Some Enchanted Evenings, " which was published about 10 months ago.

[bostonman]

I was trying to remember whether I enjoyed her voice from the Peter Pan broadcasts. And frankly I was so young, I can't remember.

 

Comparing Martin to Rigby (oh, how I wish I had seen Duncan, who I've always heard great things about), I prefer Martin in every way - even though yes, she can get very "cute" in that role at times. But I think it works in that context.

[Epigonos]

Bostonman I don't really disagree with you regarding the fact that recreating the gestures and mannerisms of a real person isn't really acting. However, if we were to follow that logic then Meryl Streep should not have won the academy award for "The Iron Lady, Philip Seymore Hoffman should not have won the academy award for "Capote" and Helen Mirren should not have won the academy award for "The Queen". I have always believed that it is much more difficult to create a fictional character than a real one. One can sit for hours watching films clips of real people and copy their gestures and mannerisms

[+ WilliamM]

WilliamM it is interesting that you mention Mary Martin. Originally I had included her in my list but decided at the last minute to drop her. I NEVER liked your voice. To me she was always vocally terribly, terribly cute and often shrill.

 

In person on stage, Mary Martin would have won you over.

 

 

 

Mary Martin didn't need a microphone either. Certainly not in "One Touch of Venus" or the Broadway show that made her a major star when she sang "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" on opening night". Cole Porter.

[bostonman]

Bostonman I don't really disagree with you regarding the fact that recreating the gestures and mannerisms of a real person isn't really acting. However, if we were to follow that logic then Meryl Streep should not have won the academy award for "The Iron Lady, Philip Seymour Hoffman should not have won the academy award for "Capote" and Helen Mirren should not have won the academy award for "The Queen". I have always believed that it is much more difficult to create a fictional character than a real one. One can sit for hours watching films clips of real people and copy their gestures and mannerisms

 

I would disagree, The actors you mention were using specific studied physical characterization as part of a larger portrayal. And more importantly, they were able to take those studied movements and make them seem natural, instead of studied. If they didn't have the acting chops on top of all that, they wouldn't have made such an impact. Madonna may have gotten the moves down pat, but it was a rather empty calorie performance otherwise.

 

I also disagree about "fictional" vs. "real." It's much harder, I think, to adopt someone else's physicality and make it seem like it's naturally coming from yourself, than it is for an actor to use movement that more naturally comes from personal instinct.

 

Or, to take a slightly different example - the general job of any actor, text-wise, is to take someone else's words (from the playwright or screenwriter, etc) and make them sound like they're coming naturally from themselves. In other words, taking existing ("real") text and making it sound like it's being spoken for the first time, on natural impulse. Harder than you think, lol.

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

Perhaps it was the gay cruise crowd that had the attention span of dryer lint and not the artist herself. The RSVP and Atlantis ships I've done have always acted cold for any performer but the Deborah Cox-types. They did the same thing to Bernadette Peters on an Atlantis ship I did years back. She was great... The crowd was drunk, loud and awful.

 

LuPone at 54 Below was fascinating and sounded great: She's a storyteller through song. It takes having the social maturity to sit and appreciate it.

 

As to her diction, Sondheim calls her 'flannel mouth' and stayed on her back for the entire run of Sweeney

[Rockey]

A few years ago I saw Patti Lupone perform with Mandy Patinkin and she stunk that time too.

[bostonman]

As to her diction, Sondheim calls her 'flannel mouth' and stayed on her back for the entire run of Sweeney

 

And what I hear, as a result, in those Sondheim performances (the concert Sweeney as well as the Doyle production, and the concert Passion) is this odd machine-gun fire kind of delivery when she has to sing fast words, where every syllable gets equal weight (which sounds awful and robotic especially in English) and the music loses all its nuance. Very eccentric. (And similar to something I was getting at in my post to epigonos above - the lyrics come out sounding manufactured and phony instead of like real words being expressed.)

 

However, yes, she CAN sound gracious and nuanced when she decides to, lol. A case in point - one of my favorite Berlin ballads:

[+ Gar1eth]

Comparing Martin to Rigby (oh, how I wish I had seen Duncan, who I've always heard great things about), I prefer Martin in every way - even though yes, she can get very "cute" in that role at times. But I think it works in that context.

 

When I was about 10 years old, I saw the movie The Star Spangled Girl with Sandy Duncan. I don't think the movie had very good reviews. But I liked it at the time.

 

Gman

[kewtex]

I've liked her less and less over the years (most of her Sondheim singing in particular annoys the hell out of me - her vocal delivery is just so odd), though again, her gutsiness onstage is always fun.

 

I liked Lupone's interpretation of "Ladies Who Lunch" at Sondheim's 80th birthday concert.

[+ Gar1eth]

I liked Lupone's interpretation of "Ladies Who Lunch" at Sondheim's 80th birthday concert.

I liked that except for some of the emphasis she gives to the words. As @bostonman said, she seems to give equal weight to most of the syllables which sounds very weird to me.

 

Looking at Elaine Strich frowning in the back during the performance, I wasn't sure if it was because when you get elderly your face often looks severe, or whether she was upset at not singing it. Even with the hug at the end, I wonder if it was real or just a bit of stage business.

 

 

I have to say on a melodic/tonal basis, (if those aren't the correct terms, forgive me-I'm not a professional as some of you are) I enjoyed that version much more than I ever did Strich's. Strich-and I'm not very familiar with her except from when she's been mentioned on here-can act out a song as you all know. But she's not really a singer. I'm quite impressed with how Patti seemed to be able to belt out parts of that song and not look as if she were straining at all.

 

However to make Elaine keep singing the song after a 14 hour recording session was cruel and inhumane.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5skZCQjOhk

 

Here is where she nailed it after some rest. (I'm very surprised she was able to sing it night after night if it took this much out of her).

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqnzCwRZ6dk

 

Gman

[Good Grief]

I liked Lupone's interpretation of "Ladies Who Lunch" at Sondheim's 80th birthday concert.

 

Does anybody still wear a hat?

 

Stritch was, sort of. Loved that! Loved Strich. What can I say?

[kewtex]

However to make Elaine keep singing the song after a 14 hour recording session was cruel and inhumane.

 

Yes, she should have been sent home hours earlier.

 

Here's a clip of Stritch doing the song with Michael Bennett's "choreography." The acting is great. The vocals are grating.

 

[bostonman]

However to make Elaine keep singing the song after a 14 hour recording session was cruel and inhumane.

 

Well, yes, and no. She was not taking good care of herself at that point in her life (alcohol and I believe, by that point in her life, diabetes), and she wasn't as prepared for the session as she should have been. The other issue is that, especially in those days, cast albums were very quick sessions - meant to be a one-day affair on the day off (and mostly done right after the opening weekend), without a chance to go back for more studio time. So the fact that they had her come in the next morning to dub in her vocals was already a concession. But the alternative would have been to leave the song off the recording, and I doubt Stritch, along with anyone else, would have wanted that.

 

So yes - a long day, and a tough one, but she knew that going in.

[bostonman]

Strich-and I'm not very familiar with her except from when she's been mentioned on here-can act out a song as you all know. But she's not really a singer.

 

But, back in the day...I mean, she was never a beautiful singer, but listen to her here in 1954 - when they threw "You Took Advantage Of Me" as an extra song into the revival of On Your Toes, especially for her...it's a very different voice, lol.

 

[handiacefailure]

Great clip. Thanks for sharing.

 

I've seen Patti many times both in shows and performing in concert. IMO Evita was a movie that never should have been made, nothing at all like the theater production.

 

I remember when Patti was touring with Mandy Patikin and I was talking with a guy who was around 25 working in my office at the time and he was asking me about my weekend plans and I told him I was going to Cleveland to see them in concert and he was asking who they were. I told him they were in Evita together and I was hoping Patti would sing Don't Cry for me Argentina and he responded that he didn't know that they made a stage production out of the movie and asked if Madonna was getting royalties when Patti sang it:) If Patti heard him say that she'd probably bitch slap him:)

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

One of my favorite Patti performances... a Les Mouches arrangement.

 

She sang the living shit out of it on Merv

 

<

[bostonman]

I was hoping Patti would sing Don't Cry for me Argentina and he responded that he didn't know that they made a stage production out of the movie and asked if Madonna was getting royalties when Patti sang it:) If Patti heard him say that she'd probably bitch slap him:)

 

And of course, a lot of people are similarly unaware that Evita, just like Jesus Christ Superstar, started out as a rock concept album. And that Lupone wasn't the first woman to play Eva onstage - that was Elaine Page, in London, the year before the show came to Broadway. (Julie Covington sang on the concept album.)

 

The guy singing Che on that 1976 concept album is listed as "C. T. Wilkinson." About a decade later, he'd be much better known as Colm Wilkinson, the original Jean Valjean in a brand new musical called Les Miserables.

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

But, back in the day...I mean, she was never a beautiful singer, but listen to her here in 1954 - when they threw "You Took Advantage Of Me" as an extra song into the revival of On Your Toes, especially for her...it's a very different voice, lol.

 

 

 

I have an odd affinity for her version of Bongo Bongo Bongo myself

[+ Gar1eth]

The other issue is that, especially in those days, cast albums were very quick sessions - meant to be a one-day affair on the day off (and mostly done right after the opening weekend), without a chance to go back for more studio time. So the fact that they had her come in the next morning to dub in her vocals was already a concession. But the alternative would have been to leave the song off the recording, and I doubt Stritch, along with anyone else, would have wanted that.

 

So yes - a long day, and a tough one, but she knew that going in.

 

I wonder if they record cast albums similar to that nowadays too. I had the opportunity to see the 2013 production of Pippin. I think I saw a Sunday matinee performance. Patina Miller who played the leading lady was out that day. I think they had just recorded the cast album a few days earlier -possibly the Tony nominations had just been announced and she had also had a lot of interviews. I vaguely remember a newspaper story saying her voice had given out during a performance a day or two before. Her U/S did a good job in any case.

 

Gman

[+ Gar1eth]

One of my favorite Patti performances... a Les Mouches arrangement.

 

She sang the living shit out of it on Merv

 

<

 

I get the feeling it isn't a performance. That's her normal attitude.

 

Gman

[bostonman]

I wonder if they record cast albums similar to that nowadays too. I had the opportunity to see the 2013 production of Pippin. I think I saw a Sunday matinee performance. Patina Miller who played the leading lady was out that day. I think they had just recorded the cast album a few days earlier -possibly the Tony nominations had just been announced and she had also had a lot of interviews. I vaguely remember a newspaper story saying her voice had given out during a performance a day or two before. Her U/S did a good job in any case.

 

Monday is the traditional recording day, as it's the "dark day" (i.e. no performance that evening). And I just checked - Pippin recorded on April 29th, which was indeed a Monday.

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

I get the feeling it isn't a performance. That's her normal attitude.

 

Gman

 

Do you know Patti?

 

Friends of mine who have worked with her says she's gracious and determined. She expects a lot from her cast, and I admire that. She's old school.