Tony Award performances & acceptance speeches

[silverstarry]

Ariana DeBose in the opening number

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If you didn't watch the broadcast/livestream, here's what you missed on...Glee!

Comments

[bttrsondaughter]

Illinoise, Merrily, The Outsiders were my top three performances BUT! Stereophonic was cool and Water For Elephants was impressive!

Cabaret (yes Cabaret, Cabaret AT the Kit-Kat Club is a ridiculous title and none of us should use it)… anyways i want to know what the fuck British critics were smoking bc it’s bad. they need to extend formal apologies to Alan Cumming and Joel Grey

[quinnmorgendorf]

Wtf was Eddie Redmayne doing? I don't think the Emcee is supposed to be creepy and menacing.

And he still sounds like a muppet when he sings. I can't believe this man keeps getting booked for musicals smh.

[squirrels_oh_no]

He accidentally was channeling his Jupiter Ascending performance from what I can tell LMAO.

[bttrsondaughter]

so much of this production of Cabaret seems to indulge in this exaggerated ugliness on purpose, but Redmayne just exaggerates to the point of breaking the whole show lol

the Emcee to me does read as a bit creepy, but ultimately there is a complicated bit of character work to pull it off

[silverstarry]

The one positive thing I will say about Eddie Redmayne’s performance is that he is 100% committed.

[firstknivesclub]

He did that weird tiktok dancing thing that people do on there that makes them look animated I don't know how to describe it but I HATE it.

[silverstarry]

I like him as an actor but his Kermit the Frog voice in Les Mis was both surprising and disappointing.

Daniel Radcliffe, on the other hand, has improved his singing since How to Succeed!

[silverstarry]

For those who haven’t seen other MCs before, Joel Grey at the 1967 Tony Awards:

Joel Grey in the 1972 movie:

Alan Cumming at the 1998 Tonys:

Alan Cumming at the 2014 Tonys:

Alan Cumming & Joel Grey at the Kennedy Center Honors for Kander & Ebb:

[drnilescrane]

I spent this morning revisiting Alan's Emcee and also watched the video of him and Joel. Why I get what Eddie is communicating, I think it's tough to live up to both of their performances. Part of what I see in these two and not in Eddie's is a lived-in sort of thing? Like two very different physicalities and choreos but it is grounded and it is menacing but not so over the top? Like all three are committed performances but it's just slightly too much.

I also think AC doing Cabaret ten years ago, it's not far enough removed to not do something totally original, which I feel like Eddie's is but also isn't?

I also wonder if it's because Eddie is straight? Like not saying a straight actor couldn't do it but idk?

[scriptedending]

I haven't seen the full show, so maybe he's better in that, but Eddie's Emcee feels like a performance in a really artificial and distracting way. Like he's forcing being grotesque, whereas Alan Cumming has a creepy edge, but is more theatrical and funny, which makes the part hit way harder as the show goes on.

Realizing that the 2014 Cabaret was the first show I ever saw on Broadway! Followed by Michael C. Hall in Hedwig the next day. A fantastic intro weekend!

[drnilescrane]

Part of the show is this song introducing how you'll see this character, and it's supposed to ramp up and not ramp down? Unless they think the actor can't articulate that to the audience, which is another issue entirely. Looking at vids of it in London and here they definitely amplify it as much as they can, which to me feels a little cheap? Idk

That must've been one hell of a week!!!!

[bttrsondaughter]

this is only tangentially related, but thanks to Lin-Manuel Miranda's appearance on the Blank Check podcast during the Fosse series, in my head i can only now refer to Kandor & Ebb as: The Homies Kandor & Ebb.

there's a sexuality to alan cumming's performance that is missing from this new revival despite how over the top the performances are in their "debauchery." and it'll never stop being amazing to see how joel grey kept the spirit of his original performance alive in the film, like he's never playing to the back of the room on screen (a la ben platt in Dear Evan Hansen).