| re: The Phone Call | |
| Posted by: mikem 11:27 pm EDT 05/10/24 | |
| In reply to: The Phone Call - NeoAdamite 04:00 pm EDT 05/10/24 | |
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| That's a great line from Nielsen. She really was born to play that part, and she was so, so good in it. It's really a shame that she didn't win the Tony. Judith Light won Featured Actress in a Play for the second year in a row that year. Light is a wonderful actress, but it would have been nice if she and Nielsen each had a Tony. My very tiny quibble with Tuesday's show is that I think the staging of The Phone Call may have undercut its impact a bit for people who hadn't seen the show before. It was not staged in a way that there was a possibility that there was someone else on the other end of the line, because she wasn't holding a phone to her ear for most of the monologue. In general, the evening was staged with minimal props, and Nielsen did The Phone Call while standing behind a music stand containing the script. There was a phone receiver (but only the receiver) handed to her by Linda Lavin after the phone "rang," but she basically put it down for most of the monologue. I don't know if it was clear to everyone in the audience that when Nielsen tells her suitor that she checked her appointment book and she's busy on Saturday, she didn't actually check her appointment book; she's making it up that she has a conflict because she's scared to say yes. In my previous viewings of the show, there was audible audience reaction when she says she can't go, but I didn't notice that at this performance. Similarly, I don't think it was entirely clear that when she says she's free after all, she's again not checking the possibly non-existent appointment book. But Nielsen was magnificent. And I noticed she was still quite emotional in the first bit of the following scene. Two of the few props that were used were the coffee mugs in the first scene. Rather than smashing them, Nielsen threw them upstage so far that they actually bounced out of sight. She threw them much farther than I think I could have. If she ever decides to give up acting, maybe she can get a second career as a pitcher for the Yankees! Speaking of upstage, Linda Lavin made a charming flub that stopped the show when I think she was supposed to be referring to "outside," but instead she said, "upstage" while gesturing in that direction. A few people in the audience started laughing, which became contagious among both audience and the cast. I don't think Lavin realized at first what she had said, which made it even more charming. She was also involved in the other flub that I noticed, which happened when she stuck the pin in the voodoo doll, at which point Sigourney Weaver is supposed to yelp from offstage. The last time she did it, for some reason, there was no offstage yelp, and it finally came many seconds later. Lavin gave a look of, "hey, it's live theater, what are you going to do?" that was hilarious. |
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