Thank you for the great reviews. I will go see Prince F*ggot asap. And yes, I agree. Ms Chenoweth is a very odd bird. She’s best at portraying a single-minded nsrcissist (like Glinda, like the ‘Charlie Brown’ character), bit she can’t pull off being a human being that we can identify with. Mary Martin, Julie Andrews, even the somewhat mannered Lupone, Peters, and Verdon exhibited sufficient vulnerability so you could identify w their characters. Not Chenoweth. It also may hurt her that her face is so pulled and stretched you can no longer feel her through her face.
She could probably pull off Dolly (but Dolly has to be really there for ‘Before the Parade Passes
By.’). I don’t know if there’s a role in the canon that fits her well. Maybe the arch Lili in “Kiss me Kate.’
When you compare Chenoweth with Judy Garland, it’s easy to see what’s missing.
But she is a delight, in her own performative way. I can see where they thought the venal Jackie in Versailles might’ve worked. Maybe she should play J Pierrpont Finch.
You are 100% right: she is incapable of real vulnerability, only a performance of vulnerability. Even as Glinda, for as much acclaim as it brought her, in "For Good" and the internal section of "Thank Goodness," we got a savvy technician's imitation of vulnerability, all in vocal dynamics and choreography of the eyes and head. I agree that she could probably pull of Dolly, but it would be much more in the vein of Channing or Midler than Martin or Murphy--a glorious feat of personality rather than something with a hint of pathos.
My sense in she's really trying for something more in Versailles, but has too long coasted on her celebrated tricks to pull it off. Strangely, I think her most authentic performance was likely in her small but important role in Steel Pier as a brutally ambitious climber desperate to leave her humble beginnings behind her. So...yeah...let's get that gender blind revival of How to Succeed going for her. Christopher Fitzgerald as Rosemary?
Thank you for the great reviews. I will go see Prince F*ggot asap. And yes, I agree. Ms Chenoweth is a very odd bird. She’s best at portraying a single-minded nsrcissist (like Glinda, like the ‘Charlie Brown’ character), bit she can’t pull off being a human being that we can identify with. Mary Martin, Julie Andrews, even the somewhat mannered Lupone, Peters, and Verdon exhibited sufficient vulnerability so you could identify w their characters. Not Chenoweth. It also may hurt her that her face is so pulled and stretched you can no longer feel her through her face.
She could probably pull off Dolly (but Dolly has to be really there for ‘Before the Parade Passes
By.’). I don’t know if there’s a role in the canon that fits her well. Maybe the arch Lili in “Kiss me Kate.’
When you compare Chenoweth with Judy Garland, it’s easy to see what’s missing.
But she is a delight, in her own performative way. I can see where they thought the venal Jackie in Versailles might’ve worked. Maybe she should play J Pierrpont Finch.
You are 100% right: she is incapable of real vulnerability, only a performance of vulnerability. Even as Glinda, for as much acclaim as it brought her, in "For Good" and the internal section of "Thank Goodness," we got a savvy technician's imitation of vulnerability, all in vocal dynamics and choreography of the eyes and head. I agree that she could probably pull of Dolly, but it would be much more in the vein of Channing or Midler than Martin or Murphy--a glorious feat of personality rather than something with a hint of pathos.
My sense in she's really trying for something more in Versailles, but has too long coasted on her celebrated tricks to pull it off. Strangely, I think her most authentic performance was likely in her small but important role in Steel Pier as a brutally ambitious climber desperate to leave her humble beginnings behind her. So...yeah...let's get that gender blind revival of How to Succeed going for her. Christopher Fitzgerald as Rosemary?