![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Tony Awards
Jun. 12th, 2006 08:23 amOne thing that sets our experience with the Tonys apart from other shows (like the Oscars or the Emmys) is that ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shadesong and I have almost no way to form a real opinion about what should win. 1992 was the last year in which I'd seen all or most of the nominated shows, with '93 being the last one I'd even seen more than one. And you can't really get a sense for how good or bad a show is merely by watching three-minute clips with canned songs on a stage that's completely new to the actors.
So I'm not quite as upset that, say The Pajama Game pulled off the Best Revival over what appears to be a truly interesting take on The Threepenny Opera* as I would be if I'd seen them both and walked away with the same opinions I had last night; the awards aren't about the ability to condense a musical into three minutes.
That said, I do think that last night made it perfectly clear that Harry Conick Junior would be doing the world (and the world of musical theatre) a great fucking favor if he would just get hit by a falling piano.
The speeches, as always, were mostly wonderful, with some genuinely touching moments on behalf of most of the actors (I particularly enjoyed the speech Richard Griffiths gave); Oscar winners could learn a thing or two from Tony winners.
Including how to act. I'm sure I'm not the only person who took some some schadenfreude-laced delight in seeing Julia Roberts come out immediately after the Best Actress category in which she was snubbed. Give her credit, though, for basically acknowledging being out of her league.
It was also nice to see something of a true split at the top -- The Drowsy Chaperone and Jersey Boys both nabbed enough major awards to take bragging rights (with the nod for Director going to Sweeney Todd -- another show that had to have been better in its full production, although why the fuck Patti Fucking Lupone still gets cast, let alone nominated, escapes me). Especially nice considering that both shows were basically huge underdogs entering the season.
Overall, a good show. It might have been better with, say, Hugh Jackman as host, but the show itself was still fun.
*The first version of The Threepenny Opera I saw was the unbelievably bad 1989 John Dexter interpretation, featuring Sting proving himself to be quite possibly the worst actor in Broadway history as Macheath. How bad was it? Here's the opening line of Frank Rich's review: After emerging from the inert gray mass that is Broadway's ''Threepenny Opera,'' the first thing you want to do - assuming you don't drink - is run home and listen to any available recording of its score. The reason is not to revisit the evening's high points - there are none - but to make sure you are still among the living. How could these scathing songs, forged in the crucible of the century's apocalypse, sound as numbing as they do from the stage?
Therefore, pretty much any other interpretation of the show looks like a work of genius to me.
shadesong and I have almost no way to form a real opinion about what should win. 1992 was the last year in which I'd seen all or most of the nominated shows, with '93 being the last one I'd even seen more than one. And you can't really get a sense for how good or bad a show is merely by watching three-minute clips with canned songs on a stage that's completely new to the actors. So I'm not quite as upset that, say The Pajama Game pulled off the Best Revival over what appears to be a truly interesting take on The Threepenny Opera* as I would be if I'd seen them both and walked away with the same opinions I had last night; the awards aren't about the ability to condense a musical into three minutes.
That said, I do think that last night made it perfectly clear that Harry Conick Junior would be doing the world (and the world of musical theatre) a great fucking favor if he would just get hit by a falling piano.
The speeches, as always, were mostly wonderful, with some genuinely touching moments on behalf of most of the actors (I particularly enjoyed the speech Richard Griffiths gave); Oscar winners could learn a thing or two from Tony winners.
Including how to act. I'm sure I'm not the only person who took some some schadenfreude-laced delight in seeing Julia Roberts come out immediately after the Best Actress category in which she was snubbed. Give her credit, though, for basically acknowledging being out of her league.
It was also nice to see something of a true split at the top -- The Drowsy Chaperone and Jersey Boys both nabbed enough major awards to take bragging rights (with the nod for Director going to Sweeney Todd -- another show that had to have been better in its full production, although why the fuck Patti Fucking Lupone still gets cast, let alone nominated, escapes me). Especially nice considering that both shows were basically huge underdogs entering the season.
Overall, a good show. It might have been better with, say, Hugh Jackman as host, but the show itself was still fun.
*The first version of The Threepenny Opera I saw was the unbelievably bad 1989 John Dexter interpretation, featuring Sting proving himself to be quite possibly the worst actor in Broadway history as Macheath. How bad was it? Here's the opening line of Frank Rich's review: After emerging from the inert gray mass that is Broadway's ''Threepenny Opera,'' the first thing you want to do - assuming you don't drink - is run home and listen to any available recording of its score. The reason is not to revisit the evening's high points - there are none - but to make sure you are still among the living. How could these scathing songs, forged in the crucible of the century's apocalypse, sound as numbing as they do from the stage?
Therefore, pretty much any other interpretation of the show looks like a work of genius to me.