2014 Tony Predictions: Best Featured Actress

In my last post we discussed the supporting men, and today we discuss the supporting women who are up for Tony Awards in just a couple weeks' time.  Predicting these two categories will be tough, as both races are pretty wide open at the moment.  And then you have to take into account that the actress who should win is not always the person who will when, which throws another wrench into any sort of speculation.  But I am nothing if not persistent, so read on to see my best guesses for this year's big winners.

Best Featured Actress in a Play

The always charming Celia Keenan-Bolger was ideally cast as Laura in The Glass Menagerie, even if director John Tiffany let her down with some of his more bizarre choices.

 

Nominees: Sarah Greene, The Cripple of Inishmaan; Celia Keenan-Bolger, The Glass Menagerie; Sophie Okonedo, A Raisin in the Sun; Anika Noni Rose, A Raisin in the Sun; Mare Winningham, Casa Valentina

Many deserving women are nominated in this category, but at the same time there aren't any that seem to demand Tony recognition.  The Cripple of Inishmann, despite positive reviews and the presence of Daniel Radcliffe in the title role, has proven to be a bit of a non-event in terms of box office and awards potential.  That will hurt Sarah Greene's chances, along with the fact that her character comes across as a tad two-dimensional due to the broad nature of playwright Martin McDonagh's script.  A Raisin in the Sun's Sophie Okonedo and Anika Noni Rose will likely cancel one another out, with the final nail in the coffin being the lukewarm critical reception to that revival in general.  Okonedo is not entirely out of the picture, although she does face the significant handicap of playing the same role Audra McDonald inhabited to Tony-winning effect only 10 years ago.

Mare Winningham of Casa Valentina has been this season's stealth awards contender.  She didn't receive a lot of attention when the Harvey Fierstein dramedy opened last month, but has been a regular fixture on Best Supporting Actress lists and won the Outer Critics Circle Award for her work in the show.  She is probably Celia Keenan-Bolger's biggest competition, although the latter drew universal praise for her lonely, damaged Laura in last fall's The Glass Menagerie.  This is Keenan-Bolger's 3rd career nomination, and she still has a lot of goodwill left from her equally praised turn in Peter and the Starcatcher 2 years ago, which only increases her chances of finally winning.  I'm going to give the slightest of edges to Keenan-Bolger, but she and Winningham are so neck and neck that this is almost too close to call.

Should Win:  Toss-up between Mare Winningham (Casa Valentina) and Celie Keenan-Bolger (The Glass Menagerie)
Will Win:  Celia Keenan-Bolger, The Glass Menagerie                                                                     

 

Best Featured Actress in a Musical

Ingenues are deceptively simply roles to play.  With the wrong actress, they become boring or even worse, obnoxious.  Thankfully Lauren Worsham manages to avoid both of those pitfalls while looking absolutely *fabulous* in her Edwardian hat.

 

Nominees: Linda Emond, Cabaret; Lena Hall, Hedwig and the Angry Inch; Anika Larsen, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical; Adriane Lenox, After Midnight; Lauren Worsham, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder

This is certainly an eclectic group of nominees.  Lena Hall does a lot with very little in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, but in this case I think the nomination is the win, and would be very surprised if she was actually called up to the podium on June 8th.  Adriane Lenox is the only previous winner in this group, and although she nails her two big numbers in After Midnight I suspect Tony voters will opt to spread the wealth.  And Anika Larsen is a complete wildcard; despite Beautiful's clutch of nominations I don't consider it to be a serious contender for most awards, but the sheer number of nominations for a show with such a small amount of buzz (despite steadily strong box office) means it must have impressed a lot of people.  Larsen may reap the benefits of that love, especially since Beautiful's subject matter allows her to do more serious "Acting" than many of the nominees in this category.  (Even in musicals, there's the usual awards bias towards dramatic roles, even if it is less pronounced than in plays or film.)

Linda Emond probably deserved to win for her long-suffering wife in the Phillip Seymour Hoffman-led Death of a Salesman (writing these predictions, I'm realizing just how much I disagree with the way the 2012 Tony Awards turned out).  Although I haven't personally seen the show yet, I'm sure Emond is excellent in Roundabout's resurrected Cabaret, but the Tony committee's distaste for that production is probably her biggest stumbling block.  Which leaves us with newcomer Lauren Worsham, who is making a sensational Broadway debut in A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder.  Like 2011 winner Nikki M. James, Worsham plays the reliably winsome ingénue in a comedy dominated by two hilarious men, and like James, I think Worsham's ability to turn a potentially boring part into a fully formed, believable character will net her Tony gold this year.

Should Win:  Linda Emond, Cabaret
Will Win:  Lauren Worsham, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder

That takes us through all of the Featured categories; check back soon for my predictions for Best Actor and Actress.  And in the interim, check out the rest of my 2014 Tony Awards coverage below!

2014 Tony Nominations React
Best Direction and Choreography
Best Book and Score
Best Featured Actor

Insanely Early 2014 Tony Predictions: Part III

I cannot speak for the rest of the country, but New York remains in the midst of a seemingly unending winter (and that damn groundhog thinks we have six more weeks of it left).  Broadway is deep in its winter doldrums too, with most of the splashy spring shows still in rehearsals before previews begin.  Which means that now is the perfect time to start handicapping this fall's productions for the upcoming Tony Awards!  You may think it's early, and it is, but what else are we going to talk about?  I've already given my thoughts on the productions and lead performances I consider well-positioned to score an eventual Tony nod, so now it's time to turn my same skills of unsubstantiated guesswork toward the featured performances.

For those who didn't read my last two posts, the rules for getting mentioned here are simple: the actor/actress must have made a major impression on the New York theatrical community.  As we have a whole slew of shows set to open during the spring, the only way any fall performance will be able to break into the crowded Featured Actor/Actress categories is via a universally praised turned.  As such, there are very few sure things in these categories, but that's not going to stop me from trying to pick the most likely nominees.

WARNING:  Occasional snark and wild speculation to follow.

Best Featured Actor in a Musical

Of all Jefferson Mays' deliriously daffy characters in Gentleman's Guide, the racially insensitive Lady Hyacinth is easily my favorite.

A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder's Jefferson Mays is guaranteed one of the five slots in this category for his bravura turn as all eight members of the doomed D'Ysquith clan.  I'm a little surprised he wasn't upgraded to Lead Actor status, although I agree this category is where his roles, however showy, belong.  More confounding is the Tony committee's decision to consider his extremely talented costar Bryce Pinkham eligible in the same category despite the fact that Pinkham's upwardly mobile Monty Navarro forms the lynchpin of the entire evening.  I'm really hoping that Pinkham, who I found to be a sensational straight man and one of the purest tenors currently singing on Broadway, also scores a nomination for his work, but if the spring musicals are particularly strong he could find himself shut out by the flashier Mays.  And depending on how many fans Big Fish has on the Tony nominating committee, Bobby Steggert may find himself among the nominees as well.  Even that show's biggest detractors generally considered it to be well-acted, although I personally found Steggert to be the least memorable of the show's main trio.

Best Featured Actor in a Play

Game, set, and match, gentleman.  Mark Rylance's Olivia in Twelfth Night is quite possibly the performance of the season, and it's only February.

They might as well just go ahead and engrave this Tony with Mark Rylance's name, because he is going to win it.  Rylance's Olivia in the all-male Twelfth Night is the buzziest performance of the season thus far, and rightfully so.  He took the role in unexpectedly hilarious directions, downplaying the character's normal refinement and making her an overgrown child prone to hysterical tantrums.  Not only was this a new interpretation, but one that was fully supported by the text and went a long way towards making this the funniest production of Twelfth Night I have ever seen.  I also wouldn't be surprised to see any of Rylance's costars nominated in this category (I was particularly impressed by Paul Chahidi's Maria), but Rylance is the man to beat.  Among the fall's other offerings, I think The Glass Menagerie's Brian J. Smith stands as good a shot as any Gentleman Caller ever has of being recognized, and I think that much ballyhooed production is well positioned to perform the hat trick of getting a nomination in each of the four acting categories (although Smith is probably most in danger of being shut out).

Best Featured Actress in a Musical

"Long suffering wife" is a sure road to awards contention, and Kate Baldwin played it with unusual depth and sincerity.  (Bonus: her slow-motion dance during "Time Stops" was one of the most beautifully simply staging moments of the season.)

I'm rooting for Big Fish's Kate Baldwin to get some recognition for her sterling work in that production, her first Broadway outing since her star-making turn in Finian's Rainbow four years ago.  I think the fact that she was deemed a Featured Actress rather than a Lead actual works in her favor, as it keeps her out of the hotly contested Best Actress race.  I also think there is a good chance one of the lovely ladies from Gentleman's Guide joins her on the red carpet, although whether that is Lisa O'Hare or Lauren Worsham remains a toss-up at this point.  In fact, I would *love* it if both women wound up nominated, as that show and particularly it's second act wouldn't be nearly as good without them.  If I had to pick one, I would go with O'Hare, as her Sibella is a little more complex and fun that Worsham's doe-eyed and superbly sung Phoebe.  But Worsham is one of the most winsome and interesting ingénues of the past several seasons, which only reinforces my wish for both of them to score nominations.

Best Featured Actress in a Play



Celia Keenan-Bolger rose to fame in a couple of high profile musical roles, but it's her critically acclaimed turn as Laura in The Glass Menagerie that may finally bring this talented actress Tony gold.

As I've stated before, I expect this latest revival for The Glass Menagerie to do very well come Tony time despite my personal dislike of it.  I think Celia Keenan-Bolger is a sure thing for a nomination, and depending on how the spring season goes the twice-nominated actress may actually win her first award.  In fact, as of right now, she's the only actress I think is in serious contention for this award, as the fall plays were particularly male-heavy, what with the two all-male Shakespeares and the Pinter/Beckett rep plays starring four male actors each.


And that concludes my semi-annual Tony rant.  There are a lot of shows opening in the next few months, and I hope to see a good number of them so that I can provide you all with reviews.  Look for more Tony talk from me closer to the announcement of the nominees on April 29th, after which point I will likely be unable to talk about anything else until the awards are handed out on June 8th.

Peter and the Overly Ambitious Creative Team

Review:  Peter and the Starcatcher

It’s difficult to know what to make of Peter and the Starcatcher, the stage adaptation of the 2004 children’s novel which serves as a Peter Pan prequel.  There is a bevy of talent on display, both onstage and behind the scenes, and the almost endlessly inventive production flies by at such a brisk pace that only the most impatient theatregoers will be bored.  Yet Peter also contains some maddeningly large missteps that are all the more intolerable because of the quality that surrounds them.

The plot is a rousing adventure in which Lord Astor and his daughter Molly attempt to smuggle a chest full of secret treasure out of England at the behest of Queen Victoria.  Unfortunately, their clever plan involving a decoy ship and fake treasure runs into complications when a greedy captain decides he would rather have the treasure for himself.  To make matters worse, a group of pirates led by the maniacal Black Stache simultaneously attack the convoy, and on top of all THAT, Molly discovers a group of orphans about to be sold into slavery, among them an unnamed Boy with a strong dislike of grown-ups (three guesses as to who he becomes).

If all that sounds complicated, it is, and the fact that Peter and the Starcatcher remains coherent throughout is a testament to Rick Elice’s script and the sharp direction by Roger Rees and Alex Timbers.  Despite appearing to be a children’s play, Peter never talks down to its audience, and includes something for people of all ages.  For the kids, there is plenty of physical comedy and even the occasional fart joke, while copious amounts of wordplay and some clever innuendo will keep the adults in the audience interested as well.  The story is so interesting that it’s almost a shame it must tie into the preexisting Peter Pan mythos, as the play’s resolution forgoes a satisfying finale in favor of setting up Peter’s coming adventure with Wendy.

Despite a strong cast (more on them in a bit), Rees and Timbers’ direction and the astounding design work are the real stars here.  The most complicated piece of machinery used is a rolling staircase; almost every you see could be found or easily manufactured by an amateur theatre troupe.  Rees and Timbers use basic items like ropes, umbrellas, and toy ships to communicate cramped holding cells, tropical rainstorms, great naval battles, flying cats and even that famed giant crocodile.  Donyale Werle’s simple set design proves endlessly adaptable, and is lit to perfection by Jeff Croiter’s gorgeous lights.  Paloma Young’s costumes give each character an identity while remaining basic enough to allow the actors to easily transition between characters, and her mermaid outfits alone justify her recent Tony win. 

In fact, there is so much theatrical invention on display that it can become distracting.  Everyone involved is so concerned with proving their creativity that the physical production often takes precedent over the story.  Entire swaths are dialogue are rendered incomprehensible due to the onstage hubbub of actors moving props, miming scenery, and creating constantly changing stage pictures.  All of this visual information is generally clear enough to prevent confusion, but it would have been nice to see these supremely talented folk put more faith in Elice’s sterling script and strike a better balance between the visual and auditory.

As for the actors, they fully commit to their roles and each other, forming a tight-knit ensemble willing to do anything to support their fellow performers.  They allow themselves to be used as set dressing, props, and even furniture, while still creating distinct and even compelling characters.  And if those characters tend towards broadly drawn outlines rather than fully realized individuals, it’s hard to fault the actors for lack of trying.

As the strong-willed but good-hearted Molly, Celia Keenan-Bolger emerges as the production’s heart and soul, anchoring the zaniness of her male co-stars with her no-nonsense yet still hilarious performance.  Arnie Burton is equally charming as Molly’s nanny Mrs. Bumbrake, and Rick Holmes proves to be an excellent authority figure as Lord Astor.  Teddy Bergman spends most of the first act playing supporting roles, but his second act romp as island native Fighting Prawn is so memorable that his contributions to the show prove essential.  Adam Chanler-Berat does seems a little lost at sea as the Boy who becomes Peter Pan, although the script doesn’t do him any favors by keeping Peter passive and uninvolved for a good portion of the show.

And then there’s newly minted Tony-winner Christian Borle as Black Stache (re: Captain Hook).  I certainly can see why he won, and wouldn’t want to advocate taking the award and accompanying recognition from an actor who has been so consistently strong in such different kinds of roles over the years.  But at the performance I saw, Borle’s hamminess and scenery chewing repeatedly crossed the line from entertaining to distracting, throwing the focus of the piece and onstage energy completely out of whack.  It was almost impossible to concentrate on the actual story while he was gallivanting about the stage, and yet I’m not sure any actor would have been able to resist the urge to mug given the over-the-top applause that met any bit of comic business he even attempted.  At one point this was clearly a brilliant performance; unfortunately, it has now grown so broad that it hurts the show as much as it helps it.

There is much to admire about Peter and the Starcatcher, including the commitment of the actors and the unbridled imagination of the creative team.  But sometimes less is more, a truism the play seems to both understand and simultaneously ignore with its shunning of high-tech stagecraft for an overabundance of low-tech alternatives.  A great story gets lost among the frenzy of creativity on display, and after the platitudes given to the show by the rest of the theatrical community, I really was hoping for something better.  As long as expectations are kept in check, Peter and the Starcatcher makes for an fine evening of theatre, especially for those who are young or simply young at heart.

2012 Tony Predictions: Best Featured Actress

Now we get to the meat of the Tonys, the acting awards.  Given the sheer volume of eligible work, someone always gets snubbed when the nominations are handed out, and even then there are still several deserving candidates for each statuette.  Before reading any father, please remember my two caveats:  1) I have not seen all of the nominated shows; and 2) I am predicting who will win, which may be different from who should win, especially in the acting categories.  As always, I will point out those discrepancies in the body of the article.

Since any gentleman knows that its ladies first, here are my predictions for the Best Supporting Actress categories.

Best Featured Actress in a Play

Nominees:  Linda Emond, Death of a Salesman; Spencer Kayden, Don’t Dress for Dinner; Celia Keenan-Bolger, Peter and the Starcatcher; Judith Light, Other Desert Cities; Condola Rashad, Stick Fly

Right off the bat, I think we can count out Spencer Kayden and Condola Rashad.  Kayden is the only bright spot in a critical and commercial failure, and if it weren’t produced by the not-for-profit Roundabout Theatre Company I’m sure Don’t Dress for Dinner would have already posted a closing notice.  Rashad could be called a dark horse candidate, but while critics loved her, Stick Fly as a whole didn’t make much of an impression and closed months ago.  One of the biggest advantages a Tony nominee can have is being in a currently running show, which leaves Rashad with an uphill battle that I doubt she can win.

While I have not personally seen Peter and the Starcatcher, my understanding is that all of the actors play multiple roles, which always impresses Tony voters and is a major plus for Celia Keenan-Bolger.  Unfortunately, Peter isn’t as “serious” a work as Death of a Salesman or Other Desert Cities, which probably negates any advantage the multiple role trick gave her.  In straight plays, Tony voters tend to reward dramatic acting or its exact opposite, full-on farce; anything in-between like Peter goes underappreciated.

If we rule out Keenan-Bolger, we are left with Judith Light and Linda Emond, with the edge definitely going to the latter.  Emond is clearly the female lead in Salesman, with all of the accompanying stage time and character development, giving her more and better material to work with than her fellow nominees.  This same situation led Nikki M. James to a somewhat surprising but wholly deserved Featured Actress in a Musical win last year, and I expect a similar outcome for Emond.  And lest you think it all comes down to politics, I have seen Salesman and can assure you she is devastatingly good, easily holding her own against Phillip Seymour Hoffman and making even the play’s most famous lines sound fresh and alive.

Will & Should Win:  Linda Emond, Death of a Salesman

Best Featured Actress in a Musical

Nominees:  Elizabeth A. Davis, Once; Jayne Houdyshell, Follies; Judy Kaye, Nice Work If You Can Get It; Jessie Mueller, On a Clear Day, You Can See Forever; Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Ghost the Musical

For me, this is a somewhat odd list of nominees.  It’s not that I think any of the included ladies are bad, but I don’t quite understand what some of them did to edge out other equally fine performances.  For instance, as hilarious as she was singing “Broadway Baby,” was Jayne Houdyshell really that much better than her Follies costars Elaine Page or Terri White?  And how did Elizabeth A. Davis, even with her striking good looks and beautiful singing voice, get herself nominated when the rest of the ensemble of Once went unrecognized?  I suspect I am not the only one who feels this way, and it is a sentiment that will probably prevent either of them from leaving the Beacon theatre a winning next Sunday.

Now, I hesitate to say I don’t want Da’Vine Joy Randolph to win, but…I don’t want her to win.  I haven’t seen her in Ghost, and the problem is I don’t need to in order to know exactly what her performance is like.  I’m sure she’s sassy, fires off a succession of one-liners, and sings the hell out of her big, gospel-tinged solo.  Add in one or two “serious” moments masquerading as character depth, and you have the same performance given by almost every featured black actress in the past ten years.  It’s such a cliché that someone even wrote a song about it, although in fairness to the writers of Ghost they at least had the decency to make Randolph’s character integral to the plot.  But it still isn’t the sort of thing that should be rewarded with Tony Awards, especially because such a win will only encourage musical theatre writers to continue using this stereotype rather than creating roles of substance for black women.

Judy Kaye is perfectly fine in Nice Work If You Can Get It, but I don’t think this role will net the Tony Award-winner a second statuette.  The show as a whole is too run-of-the-mill, and Kaye doesn’t do enough to rise above that.  On the other hand, Jessie Mueller did rise above her subpar show and gave one of the most praised supporting turns of the season.  Everyone who actually saw On a Clear Day agrees that Mueller’s big number was the highlight of the evening and a genuine showstopper.  Plus, Broadway loves a Cinderella story, and what could be more fairy tale-esque than a young woman playing the lead in her Broadway debut, stealing the show, and winning a Tony for it?

Will & Should Win:  Jessie Mueller, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever

That’s all for now.  Check back soon to see which Featured Actors should be practicing their acceptance speeches.  And check out the rest of my Tony predictions here:

Score &Book

Direction& Choreography

Even Flops Deserve an Encore

Review: Merrily We Roll Along

Celia Keenan-Bolger, Collin Donnell, and Lin-Manuel Miranda in the Encores staging of Merrily We Roll Along

I hope that Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along, running this weekend and next as part of the Encores! concert series at NY City Center, receives that oft-speculated about Broadway transfer. Not because the show (or this production) is perfect; far from it, as there are many problems plaguing this 1981 flop musical about a group of friends dealing with life’s many disappointments. But the show is so close to being the grandly affecting theatrical revelation that we *want* it to be, and I firmly believe that it could achieve those lofty heights with just a bit more work.

A brief history lesson for the uninitiated: Merrily was the sixth collaboration between Stephen Sondheim and Hal Prince, an artistic partnership that gave the world shows like Follies, Company, and Sweeney Todd. It tells the story of Franklin Shepard, a songwriter and film producer who is estranged from virtually everyone, including his longtime lyricist Charley Kringas and their novelist friend Mary Flynn. The story unfolds backwards, slowly revealing how these three inseparable friends ended up hating one another. The musical was such a critical and commercial failure when it opened on Broadway that it not only ended the Sondheim-Prince collaboration, but almost caused the gifted composer to retire from the theatre altogether.

But the show was preserved on a glorious original cast album, one which I have been in love with for many years. This Encores! concert, the latest in a decade-long, city wide fascination with all things Sondheim, was my first chance to see the show on its feet, and judge for myself whether the show (heavily revised by Sondheim and bookwriter George Furth since its initial Broadway run) was as bad as history would have you believe.

And unfortunately, this production doesn’t quite work. But it is so maddeningly close that I can’t help but think that with more time, it could become a truly transcendent theatrical event. The notoriously short Encores! rehearsal period hasn’t provided the performers with enough time to crack these complex characters, leaving us with a show that has its moments but is ultimately unsatisfying.

The book is partially to blame, but there’s no easy way to fix it. The same choice that makes the show fascinating – telling the story in reverse chronological order – also creates a host of challenges. It requires the actors to start the show at such an intense emotional level, where the depth of their bitterness and disappointment should be emanating from their pores, that few would be up to the task even in a traditional setting, let alone the abridged rehearsal period allowed here. Rather than having the entire evening to work up to that level of angst, the characters start at their emotional peak and slowly shed layers of regret to become the hopeful youths seen in the play’s final scene. The reverse narrative also requires the audience to absorb an incredible amount of back story early on, as we try to piece together the various relationships and how they got that way.

I honestly feel that Furth’s book does this in the most economical way possible; the rest is up to the actors and director. Helmer James Lapine and his cast are headed in the right direction here, but have obviously run short on time. More rehearsal, and a longer preview period, would certainly provide all of them with the chance to deepen their own understanding of the text and how to best illustrate that to the audience, which is why I would love to see the show transfer to Broadway and be able to revisit it after they had had a solid month or more to explore it. And everyone knows that Sondheim’s songs (which are at their most heart-wrenchingly beautiful here) can reveal new meanings on each subsequent listening, again making a convincing case for more rehearsal time.

As is, none of the three leads have a strong handle on their characters, although all are respectable actors who have solid moments throughout. As Franklin Shepard, Colin Donnell is so charming that you end up rooting for him even as the character makes some truly repugnant choices. Donnell has a gorgeous singing voice, and enough intelligence to be able to convey the inner conflict that underlies all of Shepard’s actions without ever being voiced. But at least two numbers require Shepard be absolutely reamed by other characters without chance for rebuttal, and Donnell misses the opportunity to really demonstrate the emotional toll it takes on Shepard.

Lin-Manuel Miranda is more problematic as Charley. Though a Tony-nominee for his performance in In the Heights, Miranda is not a singer, and seems to be outside of his natural range for most of the show. Occasionally his acting abilities allow him to compensate, but he is usually too concerned with hitting the right notes to be fully convincing. Yet all this doesn’t stop him from delivering a strong rendition of “Franklin Shepard, Inc,” an incredible piece of musical theatre writing that is one of the greatest gifts Sondheim ever gave a male actor.

But Miranda utterly botches Charley’s other big number, “Good Thing Going,” although I’m not sure he is entirely to blame. A song from Frank and Charley’s work-in-progress show that they sing at a backer’s audition, on the original cast album it is a solo wherein you see Charley’s dawning realization that he is losing his friend to the soulless entertainment industry. Contrasted with some technically dazzling counterpoint from the backers, who are discussing anything but the song they’re hearing, it’s an utterly heartbreaking moment. But in this production the song is a duet for Charley and Frank (mostly Frank) that serves no purpose; it no longer illustrates Charley’s increasing isolation, and the fact that these backers have no interest in making the “art” Charley and Frank aspire to has already been well-established. Now, this may be a rewrite done by Sondheim and Furth (though an ill-advised one), but it reads as if Miranda simply couldn’t sing the song and the music director hastily added Donnell in to compensate. Either way, it kills what could have been one of the most gut-wrenching scenes in the entire show.

Completing the trio of leads is Celia Keenan-Bolger, who does her best with the ill-defined Mary. The show never does a great job of establishing Mary as a character in her own right; she functions purely as a mediator between the bickering Charley and Frank. But given the amount of stage time Mary has and the serious dramatic ambitions of the show, she really should be given more depth than “mediator” and “occasional comic relief.” Keenan-Bolger does a decent job with the one-liners and makes a very convincing drunk in the opening scenes, but can’t overcome the limitations placed on her by the book.

The performer that comes out the best in all of this is Elizabeth Stanley as Gussie Carnegie, the star of Frank and Charley’s Broadway hit and Frank’s second wife. Although Gussie’s function in the story is clear – she’s the temptress that prompts most of Frank’s bad decisions – unlike Mary she is given enough personality and idiosyncrasies to evolve beyond that. Stanley is fantastic in the role, effortlessly capturing the glamour of a bona fide star and the neuroticism that all too often accompanies it. Although she gets plenty of stage time, I found myself wanting more of her, since the show tended to flounder when she was offstage. And as Frank’s first wife Beth, Betsy Wolfe sings and acts well enough, although her rendition of the show’s big ballad “Not a Day Goes By” needs more time to deepen into the emotional sucker punch it can be when sung by someone like Bernadette Peters (who has made it a staple of her concert performances).

Again, this is a show I dearly love, and so part of my disappointment with the Encores! production may stem from lofty expectations. But this production and this cast is clearly headed in the right direction, which makes it even more upsetting that they don’t have the luxury of more time to tackle this behemoth of a show. I suspect the difference between the first and second weekends will be enormous, and who knows what could be achieved with even more time to settle into these roles. Hopefully the reception for the concert staging will be warm enough that some producer risks bringing the show to Broadway, where I think the extra rehearsal time will result in a first rate staging of this important but problematic work.