R.I.P. Diana Rigg

[Okri]

Let's say professional productions.

[Mister Tee]

Well, now you have to give a list of your favourite original plays, musicals, and revivals!

You're going to need to be more specific on what you want. Are you talking plays/musicals I've seen in professional productions (excluding college, etc.), or any to which I've been exposed over my long education (including reading)? Neither would be quickly put together, but the second would take quite a bit more effort.

Whichever it is, I'll create a new thread for it, since we've already taken up a lot of space in Ms, Rigg's well-deserved tribute thread.

[Big Magilla]

Her last film, but not her last role which is in the forthcoming miniseries remake of Black Narcissus.

[anonymous1980]

Edgar Wright's tribute article on Diana Rigg is a wonderful read.

Edgar Wright's upcoming film, Last Night in Soho is her last film. She worked till the very end, insisting on ADR-ing her own lines on her death bed! You'll love her more after reading it.

[Jefforey Smith]

(Advanced apologies for interrupting the postings eulogizing Diana Rigg. Yet I thought I'd interject.)

When I was enrolled in Modern Drama as a University of Kentucky undergraduate, Lily Tomlin workshopped The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe to a university audience. It was great fun to attend as she tried out various skits and vignettes to gauge audience reactions.

My (mild-mannered) professors were privy to scoop pertaining to Lily Tomlin's visit to the University of Kentucky. They reported to my class she was very nice but that her partner -- Jane Wagner -- was a pistol to deal with (the profs didn't give details).

Just FYI.

[Okri]

a) Yeah, I would've killed to have full playscripts when I started getting into theatre. I have to admit, though, I'm rather sad that the Yearbook seems to have ceased publication. The website hasn't been updated in forever. That said, a lot of spending money went into buying the plays mentioned in the theatre yearbook when I started.

b) re: Lanford Wilson - interesting. My first two Wilson plays were Serenading Louie and Angels Fall, actually. My library didn't have an extensive theatre collection by any means so it was rather slapdash what plays they had. It tended to be copies of whatever plays toured there or the local, small theatre performed (we had a lot of Neil Simon plays).

I liked him enough to see a few of his later/lesser plays, like Angels Fall, but I don't know that I'd rate him as high as this list of mine might have suggested to you.

Well, now you have to give a list of your favourite original plays, musicals, and revivals!

c) re: Sondheim - I suppose that makes sense. I mean, I don't love Sondheim shows equally by any mean and the ones that are revived most tend to be the ones I favour anyway. But I also really enthusiastically love them all, so it does stand out for me. And looking at something like Lincoln Centre Theatre, the only Sondheim they've revived was The Frogs, Roundabout's done a bunch but not ALNM. Then again, from 2000/01 to 2009/10, the revival category had a Sondheim musical every season, including ALNM.

[Mister Tee]

I'm glad to know my list sparked discussion.

Similarly to Reza, my vicarious enjoyment of New York Theatre came from the Burns/Mantle theatre yearbooks

I read through so many back volumes of that series. I loved reading the stats on every show that opened in the season. Also loved the constantly-updated list of Broadway long runs (defined as more than 500 performances; nowadays, it's impossible to find a list that doesn't start at 1000). The only frustration was that they offered abridged versions of scripts (and, in a few cases, only photos of various scenes). I assume it was a copyright issue, but how valuable it would be to have available all those plays in collected volumes?

(I'm surprised by all the Lanford Wilson love. I didn't know you liked him so much)

Oddly, I hadn't even realized how Wilson-dominant the list was. The choices were purely performance-based -- I don't even like most of Balm in Gilead, and I find Burn This problematic though often thrilling.

Wilson had an odd-shaped career. I first encountered him in college, with productions of his short play Home Free and then The Rimers of Eldritch, which I really loved at the time. He was considered part of the 60s avant-garde scene in NY -- especially for Gilead and his drag-queen play The Madness of Lady Bright. Which made it surprising that he achieved such great success as a very mainstream playwright in the 70s and into the 80s. I never much cared for The Hot l Baltimore, but I very much liked Talley's Folly and Fifth of July. (Talley's Folly won both the Pulitzer and NY Drama Critics' prizes, so would probably be seen as his artistic zenith -- certainly superior to Children of a Lesser God, which beat it for the Tony -- but Fifth of July had a longer run, partly because first Christopher Reeve and then Richard Thomas headed the cast.) I liked him enough to see a few of his later/lesser plays, like Angels Fall, but I don't know that I'd rate him as high as this list of mine might have suggested to you.

Why do you think A Little Night Music has not been revived on Broadway all that frequently. It's one of the few Sondheim shows that made it's money back in the original production (also, in keeping with the thread, I didn't realize that Rigg starred in the film adaptation), but it was 36 years between Johns and (Zeta-)Jones.

In Hal Prince's book (Singularities was I think the name of it), he said that, after the artistic breakthroughs of Company and Follies, he viewed A Little Night Music as mostly about having a hit. (It tells a lot about the Prince/Sondheim collaborations that a musical based on a Bergman film was their mainstream project.) You'd think that would actually inspire more productions, but it may be that that Sondheim enthusiasts prefer the shows that push the envelope more (Sunday in the Park would also fall into that category). Into the Woods has the advantage of being suitable for high-school production; A Little Night Music might just fall through the cracks as too traditional for experimenters and not traditional enough for the South Pacific Forever crowd.

And, danfrank, I'd say the show doesn't just have "a hit song" -- it's by far the most famous song of Sondheim's solo career. (As lyricist only, he obviously has far more famous songs in West Side Story and Gypsy.)

[danfrank]

d) Why do you think A Little Night Music has not been revived on Broadway all that frequently. It's one of the few Sondheim shows that made it's money back in the original production (also, in keeping with the thread, I didn't realize that Rigg starred in the film adaptation), but it was 36 years between Johns and (Zeta-)Jones.

I’m perplexed by this as well. I saw a local (American Conservatory Theater, SF), nicely staged production just a couple years ago. The music is so lovely (it even has a hit song!), juicy roles for the actors, an accessible story, and opportunities to modernize it. And it’s freaking Sondheim!

[Okri]

Thanks for the list Tee. Some random thoughts springing off that list and subsequent comments

a) Similarly to Reza, my vicarious enjoyment of New York Theatre came from the Burns/Mantle theatre yearbooks, so much so that the performances I wish I'd seen were often highlighted by them first. So I'm rather pleased to see some of them showing up here (Michael Emerson for Gross Indecency, Stockard Channing, Kathy Bates, Tom Conti). Of course, the converse is also true (I'm surprised by all the Lanford Wilson love. I didn't know you liked him so much)

b) Zoe Caldwell, who like Rigg won a Tony for Medea, also passed away this year.

c) A professional theatre did a production of August: Osage County and I went with a friend. She mentioned that she could tell I had read the play a lot because whenever a key scene would come up, I'd lean forward and get excited.

d) Why do you think A Little Night Music has not been revived on Broadway all that frequently. It's one of the few Sondheim shows that made it's money back in the original production (also, in keeping with the thread, I didn't realize that Rigg starred in the film adaptation), but it was 36 years between Johns and (Zeta-)Jones.

[Precious Doll]

I've seen the concert film of Elaine Stritch at Liberty - great entertainment. I would loved to have seen her performance on stage.

All of the ones mentioned sound him spellbinding experiences. The only one I've seen that Mister Tee has mentioned in the theatre myself is Amy Morton in August: Osage County which was brought out to the Sydney Theatre Company back in 2010 if I recall correctly. Whilst I was a little ho-hum on the play to some degree (I had a terrible cold the night we saw it) the acting was sensational and I've always wished that that cast could have be able to do the film version not directed by John Wells (I think Turkish/Italian film director Ferzan Ozpetek could have brought that material to life beautifully for the screen). Also, the set to August: Osage County is one of the greatest I've ever seen on stage.

I have also seen Sunset Boulevard but with Betty Buckley who was great - the overall show was very ordinary but she alone raised the bar very high.

[Big Magilla]

Colleen Dewhurst (A Moon for the Misbegotten)
Best O’Neill revival I’ve seen, and Dewhurst was the gleaming heart of it

Elaine Stritch: at Liberty
Not exactly a play, but a knockout evening, inseparable from Stritch’s persona

Two of my all-time favorite performances in any medium. Both are available on DVD.

The 1975 revival of A Moon for the Misbegotten with Dewhurst and Jason Robards was filmed and is available on DVD from the Broadway Archive. It's out-of-print, but you can still buy on Amazon for $98 or get it for free with a trial subscription to Broadway HD on Amazon Prime.

Elaine Stritch at Liberty was filmed at the Old Vic in London in 2002. It's still in print and available at Amazon for $17 or for free with a trial subscription to Broadway HD on Amazon Prime.

Also available from 1975 is my favorite Diana Rigg performance, the British TV version of Rumer Godden's In This House of Brede in which she plays a well-to-do London businesswoman who gives up her comfortable life to become a cloistered nun.. Unfortunately it's now out-of-print, but is available from Amazon for $100 and up.

Rigg's last role was in the upcoming mini-series of Godden's Black Narcissus in which she plays another nun, the Mother Superior who sends Sister Clodagh (Gemma Arterton in Deborah Kerr's role) and the other nuns on their mission.

[danfrank]

Thanks, Tee, for that great read. I’m envious of all the great theater you’ve seen. Of the performances you cite I’ve only seen Lily Tomlin, Harvey Fierstein, Angela Lansbury (with George Hearn, not Len Cariou), and the cast of Millenniium Approaches (at the Eureka Theater in San Francisco before they took that same cast to New York). I’ve seen filmed performances of a few others, including Audra McDonald in Lady Day. I will agree that these were all fantastic performances.

[Reza]

Mister Tee, what a fascinating read, and a real trip down memory lane for me. Not that I saw any of these performances but am very familiar with them all, many through my teen years of following the Tony nominations and my visits to the American Center libraries in Lahore and Islamabad glancing at the arts section of the Sunday New York Times. Then reading the plays in that famous series of annual books on the Broadway and Off-Broadway seasons.

[Mister Tee]

However...I did see her in Medea, in which she was quite spectacular -- a force of nature. The Greek tragedies require intense concentration -- if the audience so much as takes a breath, the spell can be broken. Rigg held us for every second she dominated the stage. Kudos, and godspeed.

What would you say your favourite stage performances are?

I’d haphazardly formulated such a list back when I saw Audra McDonald in Lady Day – wanting to put my enthusiasm for her work into context -– but your question forces me to be a bit more rigorous. I started with a longer list, but decided to limit it to 20 first-ballot Hall-of-Famers…with additional lists for musicals (which are a different breed) and supporting performances. And, of course, commentary, since we know I prefer that to cold statistics.

Lead performances:

Cliff Gorman (Lenny)
Lenny Bruce: a great role for Dustin Hoffman on-screen and Luke Kirby on Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and Gorman was spectacular as well. Since many of us then knew him only from The Boys in the Band, this also represented a huge change of pace

Colleen Dewhurst (A Moon for the Misbegotten)
Best O’Neill revival I’ve seen, and Dewhurst was the gleaming heart of it

Robert Duvall (American Buffalo)
Such a shame he’s mostly avoided the stage since; terrific work

James Coco (The Transfiguration of Benno Blimpie)
A mostly forgotten Innaurato play. Close to a monologue for Coco, and a triumph

Tom Conti (Whose Life Is It, Anyway?)
Sly and funny—not unlike his Reuben, Reuben work – and then heartbreaking

Judd Hirsch (Talley’s Folly)
A really good stage actor in his finest role. An undervalued play

Harvey Fierstein (Torch Song Trilogy)
It’s difficult to communicate what a breakthrough evening of theatre this was in 1982. Harvey can be shameless, but his hilarious and touching work here was indelible

Kathy Bates (Night, Mother)
The play is pure hardball, and Bates was an unshakable force of nature

Lily Tomlin (The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe)
Tomlin’s one-woman shows were always terrific, and this is the best written/constructed. I’ve never liked her that much as an actress interacting with others, but in her own realm as here, she’s sensational

John Malkovich (Burn This)
Somehow boxed out of a Tony nomination, but one of the most exciting stage performances I’ve ever seen. Akin to what Brando must have been like in Streetcar

Nathan Lane (The Lisbon Traviata) & (Lips Together, Teeth Apart)
Nathan does his shtik well, but he’s also a sneaky-effective character actor, and both these performances were terrific (and very different from one another)

Stockard Channing (Six Degrees of Separation)
A great theatre actress in the best role she ever got

Entire cast of Angels in America: Milennium Approaches
Impossible to single anyone out, but a great evening. Perestroika not bad, but slightly less effective

Diana Rigg (Medea)
As I wrote below

Ralph Fiennes (Hamlet)
You wouldn’t think there was much new to find in this role, but Fiennes was electric. Nothing I’ve seen him do on-screen gets close to how good he was here.

David Morse (How I Learned to Drive)
Powerfully sympathetic portrait of a sexual predator. The role of his lifetime. (He was due to reprise it this Spring, but, that happened…)

Michael Emerson (Gross Indecency)
Before he became a TV name, a terrific Oscar Wilde here, in a quite solid play

Elaine Stritch: at Liberty
Not exactly a play, but a knockout evening, inseparable from Stritch’s persona

Amy Morton (August: Osage County)
I’ve said on many occasions, this was the performance I came away remembering, not Dunagan’s perfectly fine Tony-winning work.

Audra McDonald (Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill)
I wrote about this extensively in that year’s Tony thread. An extraordinary recreation of Holliday’s distinctive voice AND a terrific, heartfelt acting performance of the legend in her decline. All-time top five

I’m so sorry not to be able to include Sada Thompson (The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man in the Moon Marigolds), Fritz Weaver (Child’s Play), Zoe Caldwell (Master Class), Barnard Hughes (Da), Alex Sharp (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime)….


Performances in musicals:

Jerry Orbach (Promises! Promises!)
Far from his Law & Order persona, a delight in the musicalized Jack Lemmon role from The Apartment. “She Likes Basketball” was as joyous a number as I’ve ever seen onstage

Melba Moore (Purlie)
Mostly for one number, “I Got Love”, which got an encore every night

Alexis Smith (Follies)
Acid-tongued and bitter, with two great songs, and a show-stopping dance to “The Story of Lucy and Jessie”

Glynis Johns (A Little Night Music)
Glorious throughout -- and then she got to sing “Send in the Clowns”

Raul Julia (The Threepenny Opera)
A menacing and sleek Macheath; pure charisma

Len Cariou & Angela Lansbury (Sweeney Todd)
Simply legendary

Jennifer Holliday (Dreamgirls)
A better actress than Jennifer Hudson, and, oh, that song

George Hearn (La Cage aux Folles)
The only Albin I think I’ve ever liked in any version. And a great voice for “I Am What I Am”

Glenn Close (Sunset Boulevard)
Powerfully focused. The Webber material has a cheesiness quotient, but she sold both her songs and her performance

Marin Mazzie (Next to Normal)
Alice Ripley was gone by the time I saw it, but Mazzie was so good I suspect it’s the role as much as the actress.


Supporting performances:

Rita Moreno (The Ritz)
Sometimes, just funny is enough. And she was flat-out hilarious.

Trazana Beverly (For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf)
Fierce and uncompromising. A performance ahead of its time in expressing female anger

Morgan Freeman (The Mighty Gents)
I admit, I include this mainly to brag I knew Morgan Freeman before most of you. This play only ran a few performances in 1978, and wasn’t very good despite an amazing cast (also including unknowns Dorian Harewood and Howard Rollins). But Freeman had a second-act monologue that brought the house down (and got him a Tony nomination)

Swoosie Kurtz (Fifth of July)
Hilarious, star-making role. She was equally good a few years later in the House of Blue Leaves revival

E. Katherine Kerr (Cloud Nine)
Another great second-act monologue (“I used to cry. I don’t cry anymore”). Terribly under-appreciated actress

Laurie Metcalf (Balm in Gilead)
I reckon you all know this lady now. At the time (1984), she was a Steppenwolf actress making her NY debut. Another late monologue – a very long one – that obliterated most everything else on-stage

Joe Mantegna (Glengarry Glen Ross)
No one else speaks Mamet as fluently as Mantegna, and this was a perfect match-up of actor and role.

Judith Ivey (Hurlyburly)
How great was she in this? Her near-monologue stopped the play cold – in a way from which it never recovered – and I didn’t care: seeing something amazing was its own reward

Viola Davis (King Hedley II)
Like the best of her screen work, a performance that ferociously demands attention

Denis O’Hare (Take Me Out)
The life of the party – almost a play off by himself, and funny from start to finish

Judith Light (The Assembled Parties)
Never would have guessed she had a performance like this in her. Incredibly moving

[Okri]

However...I did see her in Medea, in which she was quite spectacular -- a force of nature. The Greek tragedies require intense concentration -- if the audience so much as takes a breath, the spell can be broken. Rigg held us for every second she dominated the stage. Kudos, and godspeed.

What would you say your favourite stage performances are?