Word: merman
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...YOUR GUN/KISS ME, KATE O.K., it's sad that the best musicals on Broadway are so often the old ones, but when you leave the theater on such a high, it's hard to complain. Bernadette Peters frees Irving Berlin's Annie Oakley from the iron grip of Ethel Merman in Graciela Daniele's revisionist production. Michael Blakemore plays it straighter with Kate but gives stars Brian Stokes Mitchell and Marin Mazzie a terrific showcase...
...musical about sharpshooter Annie Oakley and her love affair with Frank Butler as they toured in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show has a long and illustrious memory lane, dominated by the legendary Ethel Merman. But the production that opened on Broadway last week--with Peters returning to the stage for the first time since The Goodbye Girl in 1993--takes a new bead on the familiar old target and hits the bull's-eye with ease...
...most revivifying part of the show is Peters, who gives the brassy Merman role an adorable new twist. At the start she lays on the backwoods accent so thick you have to laugh, yet when she pines and pouts for Frank, she gives the character a funny, foot-stamping girlishness. There are some miscalculations. The device of framing the story as a show within a show--introduced by Buffalo Bill--gains nothing, and opening with the big number There's No Business Like Show Business is a needless appetizer. It's not as if Berlin's matchless songs--Doin' What...
...sorts by the final scene. Her singing is at times a high-pitched and quite realistic whine, and at others a growl worthy of the most horrible of lonely spinsters. According to the playbill, Struthers is the first to admit that she's a "belter from the Ethel Merman school"; as Miss Hannigan, this is a very effective combination. (Although at times it may have been a bit too effective, as a few little hands were seen sneaking up to cover some wide eyes as Struthers hit some of her most prolific notes.) The highlight of Struthers' performance...
...days Cher/Gregg Allman marriage 9 days Average space-shuttle flight 10 days Oxenberg/Evans marriage 12 days Barneys New York annual warehouse sale 12 days Shelf life of a professional pedicure 20 days Writing of On the Road 21 days Noncontested Tour de France 21 days Ernest Borgnine/Ethel Merman marriage 32 days Life-span of a fruit fly 70 days...