You're The Flop?

As you may or may not know, the Roundabout Theater Company is currently staging a Broadway revival of the Cole Porter classic Anything Goes at their Stephen Sondheim Theater. Above, is Sutton Foster and some man I've never heard of singing one of the shows many standards, "You're the top". Take a moment and watch it before reading my comments. It is posted on my blog page. Go ahead, I'll wait.

It's not very good is it? The singing is fine. That isn't the problem. The problem lies in the acting, or lack thereof. Sutton Foster is a very gifted comedienne. She is faced with a challenge in this role however, of playing somebody that she doesn't quite have the life experience and maturity to play. She is very good at playing funny sexy, but we have yet to see her play sexy sexy. Yes there was the off Broadway play TRUST in which she played a dominatrix, but that was not a buoyant musical from the 1930's.

 The thing that is missing most from this performance, more so from he who cannot be named (because I don't know what it is), than from Ms. Foster, is a complete lack of discovery of the lyrics. You can tell that the characters already know what they are going to say before they say it, as opposed to them figuring out a moment before.There is also very little delight in the words that they come up with. Mr. Porter is an expert of the internal rhyme, and these two aren't having nearly enough fun. They are missing the joy in the number.

The is still n previews, and there is ample opportunity for these things to be fixed. Hopefully their director/choreographer Kathleen Marshal will be able to guide them in the right direction. My hopes, unfortunately, have sunk like the boat in the original version of the script.