Here is style. Here is skill. Here is forethought.
That Issac Mizrahi production of A Little Night Music for Opera Theater of St. Louis just got even gay gay gay gay gayer with the announcement of legendary diva Siân Phillips in the role of Madame Armfeldt. Also appearing will be notable non-slouches Amy Irving as Desiree and Ron Raines as Fredrik. [OTSL]
La Phillips is a goddess. I’d go to see her in anything.
Apart from her two recordings of Night Music, I only know Sian Phillips from her crazy awesome work on I CLAUDIUS. I’ve always been a fan, but I had no idea she had such a following
She did a wonderful cameo in the musical film Goodbye, Mr Chips (about the only reason to see the film, really) and an audio recording of Taming of the Shrew with Peter O’Toole. She was a wonderful Kate, and her transition from shrew to Kate conformable was beautifully managed. She should be far better known.
She’s also Andromeda’s mother in the original “Clash of the Titans”!
I thought she was really mesmerizing in I Claudius.
She was just SO evil. Brrrrrrr. I get chills thinking about it.
I will never be able to think of Sian Phillips without thinking of Livia. Beyond evil, beyond crazy, beyond bad ass. But when Livia asks Claudius to make her a goddess because she is afraid of what the afterlife might hold for her as a human, Phillips made me actually feel sorry for her.
David Chase knew what he was doing when he named Tony Soprano’s mother, Livia.
“Taming of the Shrew with Peter O’Toole. ”
To whom she was married.
Alto I totally agree. She is a Goddess who enhances anything she appears in. Baritenor – one for you…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsUThgpC_rg&feature=related
I was at her Marlene Dietrich one-woman-show on Broadway. Didn’t that bomb?
Well the poor old real Dietrich also finally ‘literally bombed’… herself. Wanting to be virtually stitched into those hour glass gowns to be La Marlena standing there; to be vertically upright, displayed as some mummified Frankenstein exhibit in an open door Chinese Torture box. Then she took a ‘sixer’ on her backside and broke limbs…..alas, no more Marlena! No doubt, aided by the highly polished pristine clean stage floors she manic – insisted upon so as not to soil her white ermine fur trailing coat. Ah! The cost of vanity….wanting to sing about ‘fallink in lave again’ in her 80′s!!??!
But, Dear Harry, I happened to see one of the aging Dietrich’s shows.She still had the attitude to captivate her audience. And isn’t injuring yourself on stage while basking in the love of your transfixed fans so much more glamorous than tripping over the newspaper on your way to get the social security check out of the mailbox?
My god. Did Dietrich torture Harry’s cat or something? Such venom.
No Alto. No one tortured my cat but I cannot stand performers that then start to perform as if they are torturing either just their own, or someone else’s cats /or both, at the same time.
Some artists do not know when to stop. Getting on a stage and becoming a caricature of their former selves. If you are one of the starry eyed that think watching geriatic performers is a quick mental pass back to your own youthful past……fine!
No Expert: ‘Dietrich tripping while basking in the love of her fans’ They were not fans , they were her mesmerised stuffed ghoul zombies – wanting to be financially skinned and turned into part of her next fur coat: set to go with her skin tight gold sequin gown. Immortality was being promised… whilst witnessing her last bag -lady musical ‘skunk round-up’! Ha!
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She was in a play of my dad’s on TV years and years ago. He always said she was a wonderful artist to work with.
When’s Stritch going to do Mme Armfeldt?
I too adore Siân Phillips; I’d see her read the phone book. I fell in love with her as Livia in “I Claudius”(sp?) way back in my youth. She, in that role,inspired me on how I’d like to deal with those that are “in my way” in life–poison them!! then ask to be “made a goddess” in order not to burn in hell–GREAT stuff, she was (is) fabulous! (and I don’t use the “F” word lightly.)
Australia had a production once with the great Anna Russell in the Madame Armfedlt role!
Mention made of Judi Dench here reminds me how ‘off’ and character non-insightful – she has become. Playing Judi Dench …Judi Dench..Judi Dench…by numbers. Anythng she is listed in…I now give it a complete miss.
I think Judi Dench suffers from the same thing as many other great (British) character actresses. (And I say “actresses” and not actors cos they are)
– fuck political correctness. The problem for them is not that they aren’t excellent actresses, but as they morph into old age they constantly get given the stereotypical dotty old lady roles. Maggie Smith is another who suffers from the same thing, yet I remember seeing her in ’86 in the film “A Private Function” then crossing the road to see her live as Milamant in “The Way of the World” in the evening. The two roles were, of course, totally different- and enabled one to see just how competent (and great) an actress she really was/is.
Thankfully, Dench is yet to be so “confined” – she still does do roles that are very different – i.e.- the recent Bond roles- but the older she gets the more likely it is to happen…one of the joys of old age.
Funnily enough, your first sentence instantly made me think of Maggie Smith. She is ALWAYS herself, but it somehow works.
And I must say that I can even top your story of a movie and “The Way of the World” sequentially — a play in which I also saw her in twice at the Haymarket, with Joan Plowright, who was perhaps even better than she: in 1970 — I WAS young, I protest — I saw her two nights in a row, in “Hedda Gabler” one night and “The Beaux’ Strategem” the next. She was alternating them in rep. Talk about a diva-turn …
Another love of mine–Maggie Smith. Some of my happiest memories are of Maggie on screen. She has to be one of the funniest actors in the world when she’s doing a comedy. Her performance in BBC’s “David Copperfield” had me on the floor with laughter!
One director — I forget who — said of La Smith: “She has funny elbows.”
I haven’t seen much live theatre–but did see Smith in Private Lives. She got one of the biggest laughs of the evening by the way she said one word (Victor, the name of the new husband)–she made about 14 syllables out of it.
Let us not forget Dench’s recent turn as an Obi-wan Kenobi type character in some piece of scifi crap called “The Chronicles of Riddick”. Now THAT was great acting. Such discernment on her part.
Being a tad provocative – the British have always provided more great character actors and actresses and eccentrics than anyone else. Perhaps it’s because they have a greater stage history than anyone else. Today in the USA mention “great character actors/actresses” and apart from De Niro and Streep there’s not a lot of other’s that spring to mind. Along with the opera world- there is a dearth of stars and great characters on both sides of the Atlantic.
I totally agree with you Ruxton–I think you’ve “hit the nail on the head”. I do feel the British are more interested in producing great actors than they are in producing mega-stars–just my opinion. The opera world to me just needs more good singers than it needs “house-hold names”.