Broadway, the Tonys, and the fountain of youth
I was very small when my parents first took me to see many of the classics of the Broadway musical theater. In those days a regular family could afford to do so. Tickets were not just cheaper in the absolute sense (a few dollars bought some very good ones) but in the relative sense as well. And the quality of the shows was superb, at least in my memory.
But the thing I most remember is that the producers and directors did not feel the need to knock the audience over with a wall of sound and action, nor to exhaust the with frenetic over-the-top energy. The stages were not amplified, and performers had to supply their own lung power.
Sometimes, it’s true, you might lose a word or two (or three or four). But if you paid attention, you’d be rewarded with a natural sound, one that didn’t assault the ear with its ramped-up zing.
I’m very sensitive to sound, and I noticed it immediately later on when mics became standard on Broadway. The souped-up voices sounded metallic and fake. Why bother to go to live theater at all when the sound you heard there seemed canned?
And to go with the new sound systems, suddenly all the shows seemed as though they were on steroids in other ways as well. “Fiddler On the Roof,” for example, was a show I’d seen and loved in the original version with its original cast. But at a later Broadway revival I took my young son to see, I was aghast at the glitzy production values and booming, artificial sound, so at variance with the theme. There was no sense of intimacy, no subtlety, no emotional give and take with the audience except in the brashest of ways. Now everything was a huge production number meant to wow.
I pretty much stopped going to the Broadway theater about two decades ago—except for a few exceptions, which I’ve immediately regretted. The high cost has been part of the reason. But if I did go, I found I just wasn’t liking what I saw, and I’d rather keep my pleasant memories intact.
Fast forward to the recent Tony awards, which I watched on TV a couple of weeks ago. I was double-tasking, working on my computer. But still, I paid attention to quite a bit of the proceedings.
Nothing I saw there contradicted the impression I’d already had of what Broadway has become. The dancing was flashier, tremendously skilled but slick and unmoving. There may indeed be no business like show business, but show business (theater, that is) has come more and more to resemble the movie business, complete with tons of crossover stars (Catherine Zeta-Jones and Scarlett Johansson were big winners that night).
I was transfixed, however, by the appearance of Bernadette Peters. Peters has been on Broadway since childhood, and she’s now of “a certain age” (an age that can be confirmed by Wikipedia as 62). She looks, as they say, MAHvelous.
Unfortunately, I could only find a couple of photos of Peters from the awards ceremonies, and they were uniformly awful although she had looked wonderful. I can only conclude she’s not especially photogenic in stills, because they look nothing like the way she looked on TV. However, here’s one that captures more I less what I mean. It’s from a year ago—which means that Peters was 61 in this photo:
I don’t know what the story is on Peters. Either she’s hiding the fountain of youth in her apartment, or she’s got the best genes in the world, an incredible exercise and nutrition program, or a genius of a plastic surgeon—or perhaps all four and more.
Hmmmm, quite a hottie!
I work in an upper west side store and deal with tons of celebs. She was in last winter and looks fantastic. If she has had any work at all it does not show. I’ve had a major crush on her for years but had to admit those curls are a bit much in person.
Wow.
At 61, she’s not that much older than me.
Under “Personal Life”, wiki states she has two dogs. No kids. That’s why she looks so good; no varicose veins, no breast sag, doubtless no striae gravidarum. And I betcha she is not honoring the No Estrogen Replacement theme either.
A few weeks back there was a ridiculous article posted to a yahoo-affiliated entertainment news blog which reported on the fact that Peters will be replacing Catherine Zeta Jones in the current Broadway revival of A Little Night Music. The article was ridiculous, though, because it opened with the sentence that Peters would “have big shoes to fill” because Zeta-Jones had just won a Tony. Hundreds of commenters showed up and told the writer of the piece that he was an idiot because Peters was an established Broadway star. So what happened? The writer changed the pice, so if you look at it now you’ve got to read the comments to see what I’m talking about.
Anyway, I mention all this only because the show will now feature not just Peters but also Elaine Stritch (replacing Angela Lansbury). If I didn’t live so far from New York, I’d be tempted to make the trip just to see that show.
It’s not just Broadway. I stopped going to our local Catholic parish because the Pastor is miked up and the sound is too loud, tinny and distorted.
My mother does not have Peters’ body (she did have three kids), but she is in her mid 70’s and still does not have a lot of wrinkles. Hope the genes roll in my favor!
I think I may have mentioned the book, “YOUNGER NEXT YEAR,” by Chris Crowley and Dr. Harry Lodge before on neo’s blog. Anyway, anyone interested in aging well should read it. It will give you a formula for slowing the ravages of time. It explains why the body needs exercise and what kind. (Lots of gentle aerobics, some strength training.) It talks about attitude, diet, and some other things, but the message is, “Get moving!”
Bernadette Peters has been singing and dancing (Lots of aerobics) as well as taking care of herself (no smoking, eating right, getting enough sleep, etc.) her entire life. That alone is a formula for aging well, but if she has superior genes, that’s a blessing that only a few have.
None of us escapes the ravages of time. But they can be slowed somewhat by doing what we evolved to do – keep moving! Be Younger Next Year!
She’s a goddess. Or the closest approximation of.
Always loved that woman. talent, as Rush says, on loan from god!
Always loved that woman. talent, as Rush says, on loan from god!
The best predicate for slowing the ravages of aging is innate good health. That is not something one can diet or exercise toward if one has any kind of chronic ailment. Good health is the absence of illness, not something one can as an individual make happen. Better health, yes, but good health, no. But it sure causes a lot of folks to spend a lot of money on things that generate guilt but not health. It is environmentalist excess directed inward: reduce your caloric footprint; walk, don’t ride; less is more. Etc.
If anyone’s travel plans have them crossing Ohio in the next few weeks, you can experience a wonderful selection of rarely performed shows from the turn of the century (you know which one) put on by the Ohio Light Opera in Wooster, an hour from Cleveland and worth the deviation from I-80. A perfect cure to the overproduced and overly modern fare of Broadway.
ohiolightopera.org
“I was transfixed, however, by the appearance of Bernadette Peters.”
I have been transfixed by the appearance of Bernadette Peters since 1976, when she was in Silent Movie.
Tom said, “The best predicate for slowing the ravages of aging is innate good health. That is not something one can diet or exercise toward if one has any kind of chronic ailment.”
When our ancestors, who were hunter-gatherers for at least125,000 years had a chronic disease, they still had to move around to hunt and gather. Yes, they lived relatively short, difficult lives, but it was a life of physical effort. The agricultural revolution began about 7000 years ago. Up until the 20th century farming required getting out and getting the crops planted and harvested. Walking, lifting, and sometimes running day after day, year after year. Agriculture brought us an abundance of food, but we still had to exert ourselves to get it. The bodies we have inherited from the past are adapted for that kind of physical effort. It has been in the last 100 years that humans have become less active and more sedentary due to the auto, machines to do our work, and amid an abundance of food. It has not been good for our health.
Read what Dr. Lodge has to say about the benefits of walking for 30-60 minutes a day. Our bodies actually crave it. Yes, it isn’t easy and, like a rusted piece of machinery, it takes some time to get it working again. It takes a commitment. It has helped many people who were in bad health to improve their health. Full disclosure – I have a chronic, debilitating condition. Getting moving has not “cured” me, but it has improved my health and enjoyment of life. Unless a person is crippled, walking and moving around is something most can do.
Sorry to be a proselytizer, but it’s helped me.
Regarding Bernadette Peters: She simply doesn’t age, does she? Not a whole lot of people can be described like that; until his stroke, Dick Clark was one of the few others I’d include in that description, but anymore, it’s just sad to even think about the poor man’s condition.
Aha: Jaclyn Smith. I knew I could think of one eventually. And here’s another from waaaaaaay back (Gawd, I feel old just remembering her): Charo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVAVHtODxLk
Does she look any different than she did in her 1970’s Love Boat days?
Look, current queen celebrities like Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock still look amazing, but I don’t think you can even come close to arguing that they look like they did when they first came onto the scene.
And while we’re on the theme of “ageless” 😉 celebrities – here’s a (giggle) conspiracy theory regarding one current actor’s seeming agelessness:
http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n94/elmondohummus/nonsmileys/some_keanu_reeves_facts.jpg
Okay, okay, fine, it’s a joke. But still… isn’t that funny?
——-
Regarding putting mics on stage performers: Back in my college days when I worked at our university’s opera house (’89 to ’92 were my years there), we already were seeing the trend towards doing that. There were two mutually reinforcing reasons for this:
1. Fewer and fewer performers – rare enough to begin with, but even diminishing then – could fill the house with their voices. Which led to
2. Patrons complaining about not hearing the performers and demanding something be done. Some of them probably meant “get better singers” when they complained, but the effect, regardless of intent, was to mic more and more performers. I’m simply not surprised to find that it’s quite common nowadays.
I saw her on Broadway in Andrew Lloyd-Webbers “Song and Dance” — she was Marvelous! Golly gee — can that be 25 years ago already?
Beautiful women are supposed to be aloof and unattainable, not approachable and funny.
Darn you Bernadette. You remind me of two or three girls in my youth. Women that I never realized were completely gorgeous, until the opportunity for me to court them had already passed.
I think I need a glass of wine.
Looking good Bernadette.
😉
As a theater major from the 1970’s I can offer a little info here. ElMondoHummus is basically correct about how the trend got started – it was rare in my day, but there would occasionally be an actress cast in a musical for her singing voice who needed assistance when speaking. But there is even a theater cliche to cover this: if you can’t hear the actors, turn up the light. Because we rely on many other cues to understand people, seeing their movements, expressions, and lips actually does help us to “hear” them.
BTW, I went to college with Glenn Close, then Glennie Wade, who was an excellent exemplar of what I described above. She is even older than Bernadette – she toured with Up With People before going to college, and so was already 23 as a freshwoman. From the day she arrived, she could project to the last row, seemingly effortlessly.* Some of that was her breath control from her highly trained singing voice (enormous upper range as a soprano), but she helped this along with very intentional use of non-vocal cues, especially telegraphing she was about to speak by making the tiniest initial head or shoulder movement to rivet people’s eyes on her just before she started to speak.
Nobody asked, but no, I never played a romantic lead opposite her or indeed, opposite anyone. I was a character actor, like my father and brother and my sons after me. We never got to kiss the girl. Ended up dead on the floor a lot.
*She could improv and cover when things went wrong on stage, too, without missing a beat. An amazing talent, right from the start.
AVI – you astonish me. I never thought you were an actor, and part of a dynasty, at that!
Glen Close is one of my favorite artistes. She carried the Dangerous Liasons, the whole cast was just playing her court. I’d love to see her on stage!
google images of her from past 30 years. NOT a tan one in the bunch. All the other stars of her era have spent half their time making sure they had the sun glow. She seems to have skipped that and stuck with near alabaster beautiful kin.
What is missed these days is not one whose physical beauty lasts a bit longer than others; what is missed is the devotion to artistic and technical mastery which results in beauty, a beauty which resides as much in the viewer as the giver. Beauty always shows and will endure glitz. If jollywood and electronic showmanship have replaced nuanced human communication, it will pop us somewhere else as long as there are beautiful viewers.
I’ve always adored Bernadette Peters. She is an extraordinary talent but of course my crush on her derives from a relatively minor effort: Opposite Steve Martin in The Jerk.
J.J. — Does carrying a spear and looking for wholly mammoths help?
ElMundo — The theater audience has gotten older, and new people are not coming in the replace us. And we can’t hear so good!
Tatyana: “I’d love to see her on stage!”
Yes you would. I saw her go from playing 20 y/o Fiona in Brigadoon, to 80 y/o Maria Josefa in House of Bernarda Alba back-to-back.
As for part of a dynasty, not really. It was a small department, and everyone knew everyone and did something on most shows. I had a small part in the first, ran lights for the second, and was never an intimate of Glennie’s. Few were, partly because of age, perhaps, though she had a polite aloofness, a “chill” if you will, that few crossed. She and her husband Cabot were splitting at the time, and some in the music or theater departments were closer to him. Glennie was a year ahead of me, her career-long personal secretary was a year behind – the latter would be more likely to remember me at this long remove.
AVI, by “dynasty” I meant your family. You said:
“I was a character actor, like my father and brother and my sons after me. ”
Family/dynasty of actors. Like Barrymores…
“J.J. – Does carrying a spear and looking for wholly mammoths help?”
If it gets you off the couch, it couldn’t hurt.
A short story. I have a friend, a high school classmate, who became a veterinarian in Alaska. A strong monster of a man who was always physically active. He even killed a polar bear Eskimo style – with a spear. (Just an example of his physicality.) In later life his knees began to go. He quit moving much and became quite obese. Now, with knee replacements and daily walks, he has lost 200 pounds, left his diabetes behind, and is in better health than he has been in 20 years. Just one story of many.
Tatyana. Ah. Thank you. We’re fun to be with in a group.* None of us act much anymore. My father was the best of us, and we’re losing ground over the generations.
*Well, we have fun at least. Other people trying to get the foor, not so much.
I think the cult of youth is another more recent addition to the “why they mic.” Women’s voices tend not to really mature until we are in our 30s, and heaven forbid that a 30+ woman have a lead in something major. I went to a traveling company’s production of “La Boheme” and all I can say is that yes, I could believe that the female lead was dying of TB, at least judging by her lack of vocal depth and breath control. But she was cute and could act, which was more important to whoever cast the role.