As the Tony Awards approach, I want to highlight three performances that matter to me. Not one won a Tony Award. (In Joy Woods's case, the win was impossible, because the production was off-Broadway.)
And yet who cares? Great work is great work. Any spotlight on the theater industry is important.
*Abby Mueller, "Heart of Stone."
I reject the premise of this song -- Jane Seymour, married to a murderous psychopath, is just totally smitten. Nonsense. And yet the song is incredibly well written. That's the secret of "Six": It works because its songs are just better than other songs on Broadway. They use proper scansion. They are witty comments on Adele, Celine Dion, Nicki Minaj. And they're surprising. Mueller's number introduces a spin on the idea of being "stone-hearted." It's not about coldness. It's about being unwavering.
I also really enjoy the use of the present perfect tense in this song:
When the fire's burned--
When the wind has blown--
When the water's dried--
You'll still find stone.
My heart of stone.
Mueller's performance is admirably restrained, and her vocal control is astonishing. I hope she has a career ahead of her.
*Joy Woods, "Suddenly Seymour."
This is the performance that began to turn Woods into a star. I think it's because of the word "learn."
Suddenly Seymour
Showed me I can
Learn how to be more
The girl that's inside me....
Generally, the word "learn" is overlooked -- but Woods makes it the climax of the line. She punches it. I think no one had done this before. It's thrilling. It also underlines the fact that Howard Ashman had one obsession: learning through experience. "Bittersweet and strange -- finding you can change -- learning you were wrong." Brilliant move.
*Bernadette Peters, "Move On."
It's clear that Jonathan Larson worshiped at the altar of "Sunday in the Park With George." Larson included a parody of the work in his own show "Tick, Tick, Boom." When Larson dreamed of Roger and Mimi, I'm certain he had "Sunday" on his mind. Roger is a frustrated artist, like George. Roger--like George--has an encounter with a talking dead woman, and the encounter inspires a burst of creativity.
The end of "Rent" is mostly a failure, but the end of "Sunday" is a success. At the end of a show, you have to put your cards on the table. The duet between George and Dot is shocking and overwhelming. Bernadette Peters--with her celebrated belt--wowed Sondheim himself. He listed Peters's Dot as one of the three or four greatest performances he himself had ever witnessed in a theater.
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