Word: ullmann
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...even laughs at her own pretensions to stardom. She announces that she is "a screen star, in the tradition of Shirley Temple, Liv Ullmann and Miss Piggy." When the audience good-naturedly boos one of her jokes, she exclaims: "The crowd turns on the diva. [Pause] But the diva doesn't care!" Her singing, much of it done with three saucy young women called the Harlettes, is no threat to Streisand, or even Minnelli. But it bursts with feeling-almost too much for mere lyrics to express...
Apart from Sweeney Todd, this Broadway season has been a musical bone yard Uttered with seemingly logical decisions. It must have seemed logical to cast Liv Ullmann as the indomitable mother of a struggling Norwegian immigrant brood. Unfortunately, the only thing she gets right is her accent. Ullmann is no singer, and she croaks out her numbers with nary a trace of that speechifying grace that Rex Harrison brought to My Fair Lady. With her disconcertingly low voice and brisk delivery, it sometimes seems as if she is barking out orders, like some displaced storm trooper...
...Ullmann's dancing is even more embarrassing. Her dance numbers make up in nervous tension what they mercifully lack in length. She watches her feet as if they were about to trip her up, and they almost do. This is true even in a simple folk dance that consists of kicking to the left and then kicking to the right...
...might expect Ullmann's acting to be a redeeming feature, but it isn't. Partly to exonerate her feeble efforts, it must be said that the role of Mama has not been written or developed. It is not even scribbled in. However, the mark of a professional is to be able to make something out of nothing. Instead, Ullmann lapses into a series of alternating smiles and frowns. There is no sense of emo tional conviction: it is as if she were making faces before an imaginary mirror. Too many years before the camera, perhaps, where her superbly...
...show stars Liv Ullmann, the music is Richard Rodgers' 40th Broadway score, and Producer Alexander Cohen raised $1.5 million to put it on. Based on the 1944 Broadway hit by John van Druten, Mama recounts the struggles of the Hansons, who are poor Norwegian immigrants in San Francisco. The play is intentionally sentimental, a celebration of family life. When the new production opened in Philadelphia in March, critics panned it. Too episodic, with a weak story line, they complained...