When we made reservations for The Music Man with Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster, my friends immediately began to hate on it. We are, we three, fans of Sutton's. But weirdly they said "She can't sing it", and dismissed the whole thing and I was like...ummmm...yes, yes she can. She's Sutton Foster. What do you mean she can't sing it? Explain she can't sing it. It was an off color hater moment, and I sat while they snarked and listened to the non sequitur in my head, which was Nathan Lane screaming "He's chewing gum while I'm singing, he's not supposed to chew gum while I'm singing."
As I sat in the Winter Garden Theatre on Wednesday, I realized my friends were both right and wrong. Sutton Foster is not a trained "legit" soprano. She is not an opera singer. She is a musical theatre singer with an impressive belt, innate comedic timing and a killer time step. We call that a Triple Threat, friends. There's a difference between that and a legit soprano. No, she does not sound like Shirley Jones, Shirley Jones sounds like Shirley Jones. She is not Barbara Cook. Barbara Cook is Barbara Cook. Both of those women were trained differently for their voice types. Sutton Foster is a Triple Threat. A true TT is going to have a different voice, one that is adapted to dancing and singing, not just pulling off a park and bark. Marion the Librarian is written as a park and bark. Usually you cast the voice who cannot really dance in the role. I can't tell you why the producers chose Sutton Foster. She is a different choice for sure. Her "Goodnight My Someone" and "There Were Bells" were lovely, and heartfelt and there was nothing wrong with her pitch. If you say someone can't sing something, I assume you are referring to them finding or holding the pitch. Clearly, you cannot be suggesting that Sutton Foster struggles with pitch. So what are you talking about? Explain "she can't sing it".
I figured it out while watching the show: It's the quality of her voice. That's what you're talking about. She is not a legit soprano. She is not a park and bark performer. My friends were referring to how they'd prefer the role to be presented, or how they are used to the songs being sung. It's not about her being unable to sing it, it's about my friends preferring other voices. Sutton can sing it and she can act it, but no, she's not Barbara Cook. Or Shirley Jones. And that's fine. Stop saying "She can't sing it" because she can. You just don't like the casting choice. Use your vocabulary, you're in theatre, friends. Sutton is not Barbara Cook. Or Shirley Jones.
And they are not Sutton Foster. Neither of them would have been able to pull off Thoroughly Modern Millie or Anything Goes. It goes both ways.
Sutton Foster's interpretation of Marion was also starkly different. As trained sopranos who had been playing roles that are "wholesome", neither Barbara or Shirley gave Marion much spunk outside of her moment with the traveling salesman in search of Professor Harold Hill. They were pretty, and they sang pretty, and they responded appropriately to Hill's advances under the guise of "peaches and cream". But in the hands of Sutton Foster, Marion is much more wordly. She actually is "the sadder but wiser gal" that Hill sings of, bringing that song home on a level I've never seen before, and I sat in the audience believing she has a personality of her own. The way she would say "Ugh", or "Yeech", every single time she saw Hill communicated her deep disgust of him. Simple moments, like the ones between Marion and Amaryllis, where she's clearly not as patient as her predecessors, were a welcome change. There is not a lot of wiggle room in the libretto for character exploration, but she found a few cracks where her comedic timing was useful, and pried them from Meredith Wilson's cold, dead grip.
Then I saw Lena Hall as "Audrey" in Little Shop of Horrors at the Westside theatre. I loved this theatre. It reminded me of our smaller houses here in Denver; the Off Broadway theatre is upstairs, and the lobbies featured additional alien esque plants throughout. The direction was astounding, driven home by the fact that they opened in 2019 right before Covid, closed, reopened, switched casts and I saw an understudy for Seymour, with other swings abounding. It is clear they've struggled with Covid, as they're the only theatre we attended with a mask mandate in place, and open gratitude for their understudies. The show has to be tightly directed to survive a revolving door of Seymours and Audreys. The sign at the stage door read "Due to Covid we will not be signing programs". Clearly, this is a production that has been beleaguered by plague yet relentlessly moves forward. However, due to the sign, I was worried I wouldn't get to see Lena. I figured everyone else in the cast had been sick, it was probably her turn. Of course she'd be sick the night I was there and I wouldn't get to see her.
But I did.
Her Audrey is not a dumb blonde. She's a streetwise New Yorker with red hair who is wounded in other ways. She is not stupid, she's tired. She's betrayed. She believes she deserves Skid Row. Because Ellen Green set the standard that everyone followed, it took a few minutes for me to adjust. If you remove the dumb blonde approach, the humor shifts to something more heart wrenching. The pain of the human condition is allowed to wail without the mask of a stereotype to mute it. The show becomes something more authentic with this direction.
"Suddenly Seymour" is the greatest love song ever written, I don't think you can mess it up. Lena doesn't belt it the same way that Ellen did, but her soul is belting her pain in a way that communicates straight to the heart. The structure of the note and chord progressions are going to elicit all of the feels, anyway. But in the hands of an actor who can sing it and understand the core of humanity's hunger for understanding, crying is your only option when the notes reach you in the house.
I think a lot gets lost in our craft when actors and directors simply imitate previous performances. This is why I don't like to see tours, they're limiting. The actors literally mimic the Broadway performances, and were cast for their ability to do so and fit the costume. What's great about what we do is the craft itself, and our deep connection with the ridonculous human condition with which we are universally saddled. I see no reason to hate on one performer for doing their job, and making the role their own. They should be celebrated. We should all be celebrating the fact that Broadway shows returned, and everyone is back at work doing what they love.
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