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| Author | Topic: Don Black on Bernadette |
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Scottie
Registered User
Registered:
3/6/2006
From:
Edinburgh, Scotland | posted: 7/13/2006 at 8:16:53 AM ET
'I was very unhappy about what we did in America. but Andrew and Cameron thought It should be bigger, and should have an American in the lead, to tailor it for the Broadway audience. So you listen, you listen and wonder, "Why do we need that - it worked so well in London?" But you do it because the power's that be decide that's the way it should be. But in America the vital ordinariness went out of it.'
For the girl in Tell Me on A Sunday, the choice fell upon Bernadette Peters, an immensely appealing actress on her way to becoming the biggest box-office draw for musicals on Broadway, and the Great White Way's leading musicals diva. Don was not convinced. 'Suddenly we had Bernadette Peters, gorgeous to look at, but it was suddenly A Broadway Show. It had that glitzy veneer, which I hated because this was about a girl from Muswell Hill. And they all said, "She's gotta do something. Let's give her a job - she's a milliner!" So now she's selling hats to big stores and she's successful. They kept saying, "American audiences love a winner." And I kept thinking, "This is terrible, terrible." It became hokey. Tell Me On A Sunday is, at heart, honest. This wasn't.'
Peters won a Tony Award for her interpretation and the show ran for a very creditable 474 performances. it was a success, a big success, but Peters is not generally thought to have been as thrilling and as touching as Marti Webb in the role. Don certainly thought that, and was not surprised.
'I knew something was wrong at the beginning, when Bernadette - one of the nicest women I've ever met: she still asks after my children by name - asked me to show her Muswell Hill. I asked why. "Because I want to see where this girl comes from," she said.' The trip turned out to be an instructive, and rather off-putting, lesson in the American tendency for actors to research their roles deeply (some might say within an inch of their lives). Don arranged for the actress Maureen Lipman, a resident of Muswell Hill, to take them on a local tour.
'We spent the day there and she kept saying things like, "What does the character's dad do?" And I'd say, "Well, we don't talk about her Dad." She needed to know. "Could he have owned one of those sweet shops? How about that sweet shop?" she'd persist. I'd say, "Er, yeah." And she'd reply, "Great. That helps me." That's when I realised: she was having to consciously motivate herself to get the character. Call it method acting. Whatever. Marti never asked any of that. She WAS the girl, and that was it, and that was why there was a truth to it with her.'
...Wrestling With Elephants : The Authorised Biography of Don Black by James Inverne: Published by Sanctuary Publishing Limited 2003
as Bernadette says....just keep moving on.....
| Karen
Registered User
Registered:
5/3/2002 | posted: 7/13/2006 at 9:13:18 AM ET
It sounds like he was unwilling to accept any American in the role.
Well, at least he said she was nice...
I took the book out from the library and in the photo section there's a picture of the two of them with the caption "One of Don's favourite people, Bernadette Peters..."
|  moljul
Registered User
Registered:
4/2/2001
From:
New York
Fav. BP CD: I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
Fav. BP Song: Dublin Lady
| posted: 7/13/2006 at 12:17:10 PM ET
And did he ever think that a girl from Queens would not be able to immediately understand the basis of the show (according to him) that the character was "a girl from Muswell Hill" unless she found out what Muswell Hill was and what is was like to be from it. I agree that he simply had a bug up his butt about an American taking over the role and about making changes to his very British Musical. I wonder what he would have thought about it if they made no changes for the American audiences. Oh yes, I'm sure he would have blamed the complete failure of the show on "The American Actress".
"I'm one star away from Dolly Parton ... and Raymond Massey is between us. I hope we don't suffocate him." Bernadette Peters receiving her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, April 24, 1987
| Scottie
Registered User
Registered:
3/6/2006
From:
Edinburgh, Scotland | posted: 7/13/2006 at 1:34:17 PM ET
It's an interesting little piece. I am more astounded at the observation about Bernadette's performance rather than anything else he says. I think perhaps his objection about the casting in the US was more about Marti Webb not having the role and not really about having an American actress cast as Emma.
I've never viewed it as a very "British Musical" since it is set abroad - but, yes, I suppose it is, and that is, arguably, a large part of it's appeal and success. I suppose his concern, as the least "powerful" of the composing and writing team, was that his basic idea and concept of the character was changed for a foreign audience - that's fair enough I suppose.
Just a thought ... and not to put too "lofty" an edge on Black's writing - but maybe if Oscar Hammerstein had been asked to change the basics of one of his very American characters (Oklahoma, maybe) for a foreign audience he might have felt the same way.
as Bernadette says....just keep moving on.....
|  Jenny_loves_
bernadette
Registered User
Registered:
6/6/2002
From:
London | posted: 7/15/2006 at 7:54:07 AM ET
Having heard a bit of Marti Webb singing Tell Me on a Sunday and Denise Van Outen (London Revival) singing on of the "Letters Home" I just don't think they were a patch on Bernadette vocally. Because I heard Bernadette first it seemed very very strange hearing it with a real London accent. This is a bit off the point and not to criticise (SPELLING?!!) her characterisation - because it sounds so breath taking - but her accent is soooo incredibly strange. At points its really accurate but the vowel sounds are all over the place. Just out of my own curiousity - does it sound odd to any of you Americans?
they say bernadette's wonderful..........and she is
xx Jenny xx
| Karen
Registered User
Registered:
5/3/2002 | posted: 7/15/2006 at 10:40:09 AM ET
Not to me either, but then I don't have any special knowledge of accents. I bet many Americans would be like me and not be able to judge the authenticity.
| Scottie
Registered User
Registered:
3/6/2006
From:
Edinburgh, Scotland | posted: 7/15/2006 at 12:19:37 PM ET
Jenny, 'can't agree more about the rather dodgy accent in Song And Dance. She certainly does a fab job and it sounds charming but (as you point out) the vowel sounds are rather over-laboured and IMHO she just hasn't got the "rhythm" of the dialect.
But I think it is a hard accent to get right anyway. The interesting thing about a "London" accent is that there really isn't "one" - simply because there are too many ... I expect it's the same with accents from any large city. The difference between a North London accent (like Emma's Muswell Hill) and a South London accent is enormous ... even though they are separated by one river that takes a mere 60 seconds to cross, the River Thames.
Forgot to say that I am so grateful at least she didn't go down the Dick van Dyke road and adopt a "Mockney" accent!
as Bernadette says....just keep moving on.....
| Karen
Registered User
Registered:
5/3/2002 | posted: 7/15/2006 at 1:14:07 PM ET
Funny you should mention Dick Van Dyke. This whole accent thing had me thinking about Mary Poppins too!
| Scottie
Registered User
Registered:
3/6/2006
From:
Edinburgh, Scotland | posted: 7/15/2006 at 4:34:10 PM ET
Mary Poppins? Oh, her accent was fine, really rather good in fact. But poor old Dick van Dyke certainly had a bad case of Irritating Vowel Syndrome.
as Bernadette says....just keep moving on.....
| Karen
Registered User
Registered:
5/3/2002 | posted: 7/15/2006 at 5:30:29 PM ET
Yeah, I meant Mary Poppins the movie itself, not Mary Poppins the character as portrayed by Julie Andrews. Dick Van Dyke as Bert had one of the most over-the-top accents ever. But as a kid it made me laugh and I suppose that's what they were going for.
| Jenny_loves_
bernadette
Registered User
Registered:
6/6/2002
From:
London | posted: 7/16/2006 at 4:17:33 AM ET
The hilarious thing about old Bert is that when I was a child and watched marry Poppins about 3 times a day, everyday I didn't notice his accent!! It wasn't until my sister TOLD me he was trying to be cockeney that I thought "WHAT?!!!!" Haha!!!
they say bernadette's wonderful..........and she is
xx Jenny xx
| Scottie
Registered User
Registered:
3/6/2006
From:
Edinburgh, Scotland | posted: 7/22/2006 at 7:11:19 AM ET
John Rubinstein then took the stage to announce the winner of the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. This year marked Bernadette Peters’ first win in that category for her remarkable performance in Song & Dance, which cast her as Emma, a British hat designer newly arrived in New York. A visibly thrilled Peters made this acceptance speech: “Thank you. Thank you very much. I’m overwhelmed. I appreciate this so much. I want to thank my mother for insisting I had talent and continuing with my lessons. I want to thank my father and my sister and my brother for their loving support. And I have to thank a person for whom I wouldn’t be standing here today getting this, my manager and dear friend Tom Hammond. And I have more! I want to thank my acting teacher David LeGrand and my singing teacher Adrienne Angel because I couldn’t have sung eight shows a week and I can’t sing eight shows a week without her. The dancers — the dancers in the show are so talented and so committed and so uplifting. They uplift the show and they uplift me every night. I want to thank my standby, Maureen Moore. And Richard Maltby — this show wouldn’t have happened on this side of the Atlantic without Richard Maltby, our director, and Don Black, who I adore, rewrote the lyrics with Richard, and Andrew Lloyd Webber for his gorgeous music. And Bernie Jacobs and Gerry Schoenfeld — my second great experience with them. And Cameron Mackintosh and The Really Useful Company and the FWM Producing Group. And, that’s it. I’m out of cards. [Laughs.] I want to thank the audience because they’re so warm, and thank you for coming, the audience, to the show. And thank you for this very, very much.
as Bernadette says....just keep moving on.....
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