Word: midler
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Over the years Midler saw the Russell film and Lansbury and Daly on stage. She never saw Merman. Yet it was Merman, whose voice and manner were as brassy as Midler's own, who haunted her. "It was one of those legendary performances I'd always heard about. Her spirit and the history of the part were always looming over me." There are moments when she seems inhabited by Merman's ghost, either in vocal inflections or in her movements, which are occasionally as corseted and semaphoric as the Merm's. Yet for the most part, Midler makes the role...
Nevertheless, Midler long yearned for the role. "The music has always knocked me out," she says. "It's one fabulous song after another." Her showstoppers include Everything's Coming Up Roses; Some People; Mr. Goldstone, I Love You; You'll Never Get Away From Me; Together, Wherever We Go; and the climactic Rose's Turn. At a youthful 47 (she turned 48 last week) she looks plausible both as the mother of preadolescents and, in the later scenes, as the mother-cum-manager of a mature burlesque star. Says Midler: "I never thought I'd be old enough to play...
...most significant innovation comes in Rose's Turn, an outpouring of Rose's bitter longing for the spotlight. Where Daly played the scene in a fury, Midler gradually enters into the fantasy and smiles, flaunts her bosom, coyly sells herself to an imaginary audience. At the end, she and her daughter reach a reconciliation more convincing and complete than in most interpretations...
...Midlerisms creep in, especially the ironic Sophie Tucker/W.C. Fields drawl. "A lot has to be played for laughs," Midler insists. "I thought she had to be very winning.Otherwise, how could she get all those people to do all those things for her?" Textually, the production is faithful, word for word and as Midler says, note for note and tempo for tempo...
...Angeles, and more than half the soundtrack was recorded live rather than added in a studio. At the end of seven weeks of rehearsal, the company mounted the show on a soundstage for the original show's prime mover, librettist Arthur Laurents. "That was the scariest thing we did," Midler recalls. "It was like performing for God. At the end, he was very, very thrilled. That was the high point of the whole production." Maybe so for Midler. For America's once and, one hopes, future fans of the musical, the high point will be on the screen...