Watch ’em every year. Last night’s broadcast was just kinda eh. Strange-ish. Forced, strained. Maybe it was me.
Whoopi Goldberg hosted and kept popping up in these Billy Crystal-like clips, inserting herself into various scenes from various musicals. These were obviously pre-filmed and played whenever the show was going to commercial. Weird, they were weird. Didn’t work for me. Here’s Whoopi as Christine in Phantom of the Opera. The Phantom is saying, “Sing! Sing for me, my angel of music!” and Christine’s supposed to start her big, “Ahhhhh-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-AHHHHHHH!” etc., but Whoopi merely sings “Toe-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-NNNNNY!” til she collapses.
Uhm, okay.
Later, here she is as Whoopi Poppins floating in with her umbrella and having problems flying.
Later, she’s The Lady of the Lake from Spamalot. She enters in full suit of armor, takes the helmet off and says, “Tony.”
Right.
That was the running “gag.” She’d insert herself into a famous show and say or sing “Tony.”
Even later, in a rendition of “One” from A Chorus Line, all the dancers are Whoopi.
Funny.
I love Whoopi Goldberg, generally, but she rarely even appeared LIVE onstage last night. The whole evening had a strange, disjointed vibe to me. Just weird.
The high point for me was a completely nonsensical acceptance speech by Mark Rylance, winner of Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play for Boeing Boeing. I have not the slightest inkling what it meant. Judging from the bemused and smiling faces in the audience, no one else did either. He was completely dead pan, straight-faced, with a kind of younger Charles Grodin air about him. Here’s his acceptance speech in its entirety:
When you’re in town wearing some kind of a uniform is helpful. Policeman, priest, etc. Driving a tank is very impressive or a car with official lettering on the side. If that isn’t to your taste, you could join the revolution, wear an armband, carry a home-made flag tied to a broom handle or placard bearing an incendiary slogan. At the very least, you should wear a suit and carry a briefcase and a cellphone. Or a team jacket, a baseball cap, and a cell phone. If you’re in the woods, the back country, some place far from any human habitation, it is a good idea to wear orange…and carry a gun and, or depending on the season, a fishing pole or a camera with a big lens. Otherwise…I will wrap it up now very quickly…otherwise it might appear that you don’t know what you’re doing and you’re just wandering the earth, no particular reason for being here, no particular place to go. Thanks very much for this.
Everybody laughed like crazy and nobody had a clue why. Hahahaha.
Oh, and Alec Baldwin? You’re not supposed to say the name “M-a-c-B-e-t-h”! Has nobody told you, man? You’re in timeout.
Thanks for the Tony wrapup…I actually stopped by earlier today to see if you had one and was disappointed that it wasn’t up yet 🙂 One of the things I truly miss about not having TV is not being able to watch the Tonies…One of my friends is actually running the audio for the August Osage County (or whatever the real name of that play is) She was very excited about the nominations and is probably ecstatic that it won!
So how did Patti Lupone do in her clip? I saw Gypsy on Broadway a few years ago when they did the revival with Bernadette Peters and she was awesome as Momma…don’t know if I’d like Patti Lupone’s interpretation…
“Even later, in a rendition of “One†from A Chorus Line, all the dancers are Whoopi.”
I am thunderstruck. My jaw dropped so hard at that I look like Marley’s Ghost. (Probably just as deathly white, too.) Don’t DO that to us!
I remember when there was a similar gag one of the years Whoopi hosted the oscars. She’d stroll out on stage dressed as one of the characters in one of the nominated movies. I still remember her dressed up as Queen Elizabeth – that was the year of Elizabeth – and she looked ridiculous (meaning; hysterical!!) – with the huge ruff and the big poof of hair and the massive dress.
And that Tony speech is brilliant. I want to put it on my wall just to remind myself that life is more often than not absurd and I just need to accept it. i love the image of everyone laughing as though they weren’t thinking, “What the heck is he talking about??”
I’m never sure whether I’ll like watching the Tony awards because I’m not that familiar with a lot of the shows, but you make it sound interesting. That rambling acceptance speech reminds me of those production credits at the end of Dharma & Greg–Chuck Lorre, I think? Anybody know what I’m talking about?
sam — Patti Lupone won the Tony and her scene from “Gypsy” was amazing. Sang “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” of course. I imagine Peters would have been great, too. Her energy is softer. Lupone in a bit of an undeniable force, a bit in your face almost with that snarling lip she always has. A few years back, I didn’t like what I saw of her as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney, but for Mama Rose, her overbearing energy just might work. She SOUNDED great.
sheila — Yeah, I remember that from the Oscars and that worked for me. I think it was the way this whole show was produced; it seemed disjointed, as I said. Several times, Whoopi just seemed flat-out uncomfortable and when the person walking me through the evening seems uncomfortable doing so, I feel like I can’t ever really relax. I felt nervous for her the whole time.
Oh, and that dude who won “Project Runway” — don’t know his name, the guy who always says “fierrrce” — designed a dress for Whoopi. Oh, Lord. It was so BAD. With ruffles and feathers and short in the front/long in the back to show her legs and ACCCCK!! Whoopi seemed to be holding the front of it together when she first came out in it. That set the whole nervous vibe in motion for me. ACK!
I can’t think about it. I need my binkie.
Christian was his name!
yeah, he doesn’t seem a Whoopi designer at all!!
Yeah — Christian!
But the speech — so GREAT! I wonder if it’s on YouTube. Rylance’s speech.
I now am in love with him.
Oh, and I loved the camera panning over all the faces in the audience during the speech. There’s Glenn Close; there’s Alec Baldwin; there’s Mary Louise Parker — and they’re all laughing, but every single one of them had a crinkled forehead. I’m picturing it now and just laughing.
Theatre of the absurd in a speech. Hahahaha.
hahahahahaha
Kate P — Your comment was in moderation! Sorry! And I know exactly what you’re talking about. Chuck Lorre’s stream-of-consciousness credits. Hahahahaha. Those were brilliant.
-You’re not supposed to say the name “M-a-c-B-e-t-hâ€!
That’s hysterical. He’s supposed to say “the Scottish play”! If that was a Black Adder reference, your cool points just went through the roof! And now I’m trying NOT to think of Whoopi’s legs…
Moderation, huh? That happened to me at another site yesterday, too. I’m just setting things off left and right.
And I saw the dress on Whoopi over at GFY–oof. As Sam2 noted, seeing that much of her stems was a surprise.