Fun to see Bernadette Peters and Mandy Patinkin reprise their Sunday in the Park original roles... And ditto for Chip Zien and Joanna Gleason from Into the Woods.
And that got me thinking of the others that coulda and shoulda.... Where were Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou that night? (And why did the set up to Sweeney Todd to imply that George Hearn was the original, when it was Cariou I'd seen with Lansbury at the Uris Theater on Broadway thirty years ago?
Donna Murphy soared above most of other ladies in red dresses with a brilliant "Should I Leave You"!
Bernadette moved with a poignant and tearful "Not a Day Goes By"...
Patti LuPone is the only woman in town with the balls to sing "Ladies Who Lunch" right in front of the quintessential Stritchy... But LuPone made it her own by swimming the with the samba (or was it a tango?) undertow... (With a healthy dose of Lupone-styled anger and rage thrown in)(Here's a clip)
And Elaine Stritch (Yes, still wearing a hat) killed killed KILLED with an indelible "I'm Still Here"... (Good that she wasn't allowed to talk, I think! And she was having a better night than at the White House telecast a few weeks ago).
Stritch may well be the last certifiably authenic old broad (or dame) to be able to pull it off... Who's left to do this song in another 10 years with these original lyrics??? Stritch (born 1926) may be the last of her generational league to have actually experienced Herbert Hoover (Prez from 1929 to 1933) and to have been a guest of the W.P.A.
The next wave of Broadway stars that includes Peters and LuPone were (born in 1948 and 1949 respectively) loooong past having the original brilliant lyric ask if they were depressed during the Great Depression of the 1920's, and be able to use the word... (Even Julie Andrews wasn't born til 1935)
Kudos to producer/director Lonny Price, New York Philharmonic conductor Paul Gemignani and host/writer David Hyde Pierce on jobs well done...
Stephen Sondheim obviously moved and humbled at his 80th Birthday Celebration ... quoted Alice Roosevelt: "First you're young, then you're middle-aged, then you're wonderful..."
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