I will watch ANYTHING with Tatiana Maslany in it, although I confess I could only stomach one episode of She-Hulk. Rewatching (re-watching?) Orphan Black never gets old.
I confess that I still need to dig in and watch Orphan Black. ("Rewatching," by the way.) My first encounter with T.M. was in the HBO Perry Mason reboot, and I think that her performance as, more or less, Aimee Semple McPherson is one of the most astonishing things I've ever seen.
She was good in Certain Prey, too, but her performance(s) in Orphan Black were sublime—so nuanced!—especially when she’s playing character X pretending to be character Y. While I have you on the line, so to speak, I have a copyediting question. One of my favorite podcasters often says, “…and here I cite to source X.” I cringe every time I hear that “to” inserted in there. (I would edit it to “…and here I cite source X.”) But it occurs to me that just because it FEELS wrong doesn’t mean it IS wrong. What would you say?
Bubbles! I am not a big fan if theater (I’m too easily distracted by the audience) or opera … but I once attended an event honoring Beverly Sills—she was charming, exuberant, hilarious, surprisingly down-to-earth: Young scoundrel, scoff elsewhere!,
Perhaps it's apocryphal, but I remembered Sills as being asked what was the greatest aid for her voice and she replied, "Sex." Sadly, I can no longer find any record of that.
Oh, I am such a fan of Beverly Sills. I heard a story once-- I don't remember where, maybe it was just the dinner table, since my parents' friends swapped opera diva stories like kids swap Halloween candy-- that Leontyne Price was approached excitedly once: "Excuse me! Are you Beverly Sills?" Leontyne Price replied, "No, dear, I'm Joan Sutherland." (Of the three, I have the biggest crush on Leontyne Price, but it's rather hard to choose.)
It's like 1993 or 1994 and I'm so deeply in the closet I don't even know I'm gay, and yet here's this Will Smith movie they show in the open afternoon on pay cable with full-on male-hustler nudity, which felt, at the time, like how getting 'proof' that Santa was real felt 10 years prior. They show it often enough that I just decide to watch the thing all the way through, and it's been my favorite film (and then play, though I've only seen a college production of it) ever since. Anyway, I'm sharing this story as a way of thanking you for a whole post on one of my favorite actors and one of my favorite playwrights. (I'm also partial to Guare's one-act 'In Fireworks Lie Secret Codes'.)
I do like to say of Guare that a playwright who can write plays I positively worship and plays I absolutely can’t abide (Four Baboons Adoring the Sun and A Free Man of Color leap to mind) is a playwright for whom I have massive respect. I mean, he’s just spent his career out there doing stuff, all kinds of stuff. Fearless.
Huh! If that's the improved gown (and that John Cunningham is shown in his tux suggests that they're dressed for that climactic scene), then I guess I'm applying a bit too much John Singer Sargent to my recollection. Smashing gown, nonetheless. Thank you for digging that up for me!
Thank you for more Stockard Channing! This was a wonderful read. The notes are always a treat and today’s brought an extra smile. And reminded me of how much I love HBO’s Perry Mason.
I have loved Ms. Channing since I snuck into a theater to see Grease in 1978. (I just read the Wikipedia entry on the film and—holy cats!—the producers considered Paul Lynde (with a scene in a Carmen Miranda-inspired outfit) before settling on Eve Arden for the principal of Rydell High.
The Girl Most Likely to... was a big deal when I was in high school, and I was somehow always interested in S.C. afterward. I even went to see The Big Bus (in a theater, that is), though I have no idea why.
I'm a huge fan of Channing's triumphant walk down Park Avenue in the closing moments. It's an incredible moment of acting without uttering a single word.
Indeed. Also wonderful: that as she utters the knife line, she's striding through a passageway (if I'm recalling it correctly, I'll have to go back and check) that causes her voice to boom and echo.
This was great fun to read. Thank you for the hint about how to make footnotes magically appear. As far as I can tell, the cover shot of Channing appears only on your substack. (Yes, I went to 3 different sites to read/see this! and do not begrudge the effort.)
Well. Now I have a wonderfully frivolous, yet absolutely necessary addition to my "when I win the lottery" fantasies: bankrolling your directorial debut.
What a gorgeous recollection; entirely accurate or not, I don't quite care. Slightly adjacent, aslant, and tangentially popping up to my mind as I read: a work of children's literature which ought to have won the Caldecott but didn't, The Skull, by Jon Klassen, is a Tyrolean folktale he read and worked its way through his mind until he decided he needed to write and illustrate his own retelling. Imagine his astonishment, he tells us in an Author's Note, when he went back to the original and found that his memory had twisted the ending in a whole new direction. He preferred his own ending, and wrote it that way. I liked it that way, too. Memory is a funny beast.
There was a Sargent exhibit in Boston recently, including that glorious Madame X. It was wonderfully done, with some works brought over from the Musée d'Orsay, I think. There's just something special about Slightly Scandalous at the Time Art, don't you think?
I could spend eons taking in the lines and molding of that remarkable arm leading up to that impeccably graceful neck (and the subtly rendered, if inelegantly named sternocleidomastoid muscle).
Oh, I love this, thank you so much! It brings back great memories of working at Fordham and being lucky enough to attend dress rehearsals when new actors went into the show - what a treat to have seen this wonderful work multiple times. And I share your thoughts on the work that won the awards that year…
I loved that production of Sx Degrees of Separation. And your recollection of Stockard’s costume. I’m guessing one of your readers will send this story to her and the mystery will be solved. I had some of my own “evolving” costumes during previews of Miss Saigon which I will tell you about when we have our lunch some day. 😀
I will watch ANYTHING with Tatiana Maslany in it, although I confess I could only stomach one episode of She-Hulk. Rewatching (re-watching?) Orphan Black never gets old.
I confess that I still need to dig in and watch Orphan Black. ("Rewatching," by the way.) My first encounter with T.M. was in the HBO Perry Mason reboot, and I think that her performance as, more or less, Aimee Semple McPherson is one of the most astonishing things I've ever seen.
She was good in Certain Prey, too, but her performance(s) in Orphan Black were sublime—so nuanced!—especially when she’s playing character X pretending to be character Y. While I have you on the line, so to speak, I have a copyediting question. One of my favorite podcasters often says, “…and here I cite to source X.” I cringe every time I hear that “to” inserted in there. (I would edit it to “…and here I cite source X.”) But it occurs to me that just because it FEELS wrong doesn’t mean it IS wrong. What would you say?
I’ve never encountered it before, and I can’t say that I like it even vaguely.
I think that one alludes to something or cites something.
Perhaps it’s some legalistic or academic jargon?
Bubbles! I am not a big fan if theater (I’m too easily distracted by the audience) or opera … but I once attended an event honoring Beverly Sills—she was charming, exuberant, hilarious, surprisingly down-to-earth: Young scoundrel, scoff elsewhere!,
I think that Sills's reputation for haimishness makes the costume attack story that much more fun. If it's true, she must have been extremely put out.
She *did* had an admirable temper—best to watch, least to be a target.
Perhaps it's apocryphal, but I remembered Sills as being asked what was the greatest aid for her voice and she replied, "Sex." Sadly, I can no longer find any record of that.
Print the legend, as they say.
Oh, I am such a fan of Beverly Sills. I heard a story once-- I don't remember where, maybe it was just the dinner table, since my parents' friends swapped opera diva stories like kids swap Halloween candy-- that Leontyne Price was approached excitedly once: "Excuse me! Are you Beverly Sills?" Leontyne Price replied, "No, dear, I'm Joan Sutherland." (Of the three, I have the biggest crush on Leontyne Price, but it's rather hard to choose.)
This is great. I’m a Price man every time. Hands down.
Not that I don’t dig Sills and Sutherland (show me an opera queen who doesn’t…) too.
It's like 1993 or 1994 and I'm so deeply in the closet I don't even know I'm gay, and yet here's this Will Smith movie they show in the open afternoon on pay cable with full-on male-hustler nudity, which felt, at the time, like how getting 'proof' that Santa was real felt 10 years prior. They show it often enough that I just decide to watch the thing all the way through, and it's been my favorite film (and then play, though I've only seen a college production of it) ever since. Anyway, I'm sharing this story as a way of thanking you for a whole post on one of my favorite actors and one of my favorite playwrights. (I'm also partial to Guare's one-act 'In Fireworks Lie Secret Codes'.)
I do like to say of Guare that a playwright who can write plays I positively worship and plays I absolutely can’t abide (Four Baboons Adoring the Sun and A Free Man of Color leap to mind) is a playwright for whom I have massive respect. I mean, he’s just spent his career out there doing stuff, all kinds of stuff. Fearless.
This was a great post. Thanks.
Thank you!
There is that one moment with Stockard Channing wielding scissors to address a wardrobe situation (but as Mrs. Bartlet, offing her husband’s tie)...
Oh, how excellent!
https://www.lct.org/shows/six-degrees-of-separation/whos-who/
If you scroll through the photos at the top of this page, you see Stockard’s top half in a bejeweled, strapped black dress. Is this the one?
Huh! If that's the improved gown (and that John Cunningham is shown in his tux suggests that they're dressed for that climactic scene), then I guess I'm applying a bit too much John Singer Sargent to my recollection. Smashing gown, nonetheless. Thank you for digging that up for me!
Thank you for more Stockard Channing! This was a wonderful read. The notes are always a treat and today’s brought an extra smile. And reminded me of how much I love HBO’s Perry Mason.
I breathlessly waited for each new episode, esp. the first season, and then binged the whole thing twice. So far.
Yes! Sundays seemed to take forever to come about during that series. I see multiple Perry Mason binges in my future. That show, wow.
I have loved Ms. Channing since I snuck into a theater to see Grease in 1978. (I just read the Wikipedia entry on the film and—holy cats!—the producers considered Paul Lynde (with a scene in a Carmen Miranda-inspired outfit) before settling on Eve Arden for the principal of Rydell High.
The Girl Most Likely to... was a big deal when I was in high school, and I was somehow always interested in S.C. afterward. I even went to see The Big Bus (in a theater, that is), though I have no idea why.
I'm a huge fan of Channing's triumphant walk down Park Avenue in the closing moments. It's an incredible moment of acting without uttering a single word.
In the film version, to clarify.
Indeed. Also wonderful: that as she utters the knife line, she's striding through a passageway (if I'm recalling it correctly, I'll have to go back and check) that causes her voice to boom and echo.
This was great fun to read. Thank you for the hint about how to make footnotes magically appear. As far as I can tell, the cover shot of Channing appears only on your substack. (Yes, I went to 3 different sites to read/see this! and do not begrudge the effort.)
I am the least mechanically adept person imaginable, so these little mysteries of Substack are indeed mysterious to me.
As the elder person and near-Luddite, I assure you my level of adeptness is lower than yours!
Well. Now I have a wonderfully frivolous, yet absolutely necessary addition to my "when I win the lottery" fantasies: bankrolling your directorial debut.
What a gorgeous recollection; entirely accurate or not, I don't quite care. Slightly adjacent, aslant, and tangentially popping up to my mind as I read: a work of children's literature which ought to have won the Caldecott but didn't, The Skull, by Jon Klassen, is a Tyrolean folktale he read and worked its way through his mind until he decided he needed to write and illustrate his own retelling. Imagine his astonishment, he tells us in an Author's Note, when he went back to the original and found that his memory had twisted the ending in a whole new direction. He preferred his own ending, and wrote it that way. I liked it that way, too. Memory is a funny beast.
There was a Sargent exhibit in Boston recently, including that glorious Madame X. It was wonderfully done, with some works brought over from the Musée d'Orsay, I think. There's just something special about Slightly Scandalous at the Time Art, don't you think?
Thank you for the Sargent.
I could spend eons taking in the lines and molding of that remarkable arm leading up to that impeccably graceful neck (and the subtly rendered, if inelegantly named sternocleidomastoid muscle).
When is your memoir coming out please
Oh, I love this, thank you so much! It brings back great memories of working at Fordham and being lucky enough to attend dress rehearsals when new actors went into the show - what a treat to have seen this wonderful work multiple times. And I share your thoughts on the work that won the awards that year…
I revere a lot of that other writer's plays; I simply don't think that particular play is much good at all.
Exactly. Especially compared with Six Degrees.
I’d’ve given him the Nobel Prize for The Sunshine Boys.
I loved that production of Sx Degrees of Separation. And your recollection of Stockard’s costume. I’m guessing one of your readers will send this story to her and the mystery will be solved. I had some of my own “evolving” costumes during previews of Miss Saigon which I will tell you about when we have our lunch some day. 😀
I can't wait!