There's an episode of Will & Grace where Jack tries to ignore Patti LuPone as she chatters, crawls around on the floor, and just generally makes herself un-ingnorable. At one point he screams "Shut up Patti LuPone! Shut your brassy, magnificent trap!!!"
She turns around and deadpans … "They either love me or they hate me." I laughed. I laughed because I ... hate her. Those are HER WORDS ... (though they're mine too).
Don't get me wrong. I don't hate her personally ... I just can't stand the way she sings. I'm sure if I had to sit next to her at a gala dinner she'd be pleasant enough company. (Note to the committee planning any gala dinner party to which I am invited: Please don't seat me next to Patti LuPone despite what I just said.)
I remember complaining to a co-worker about how I couldn't stomach her strident braying which evaporated every drop of sensitivity that moistened the sappy I Dreamed a Dream (which, I admit, is my most favorite song from Les Miz because I, myself, am sappy and dripping with syrup). In fact, before I read the liner notes and found out it was her I remember complaining loudly (and often) "Whoever sings that song does that annoying Patti LuPone thing". Leave it to Patti LuPone to do that annoying Patti LuPone thing.
Sure, she starts off making you feel all sorry for her with her plaintive "There was a time … it all went wrong." But by the time she gets to "I had a dream my life would be so different from this hell I'm living" I'm always left clutching my ears and thinking how much less her life would be hell if she could only learn to speak softly and not FORCE every note from her "brassy trap", in that manner that makes her sound like a senior citizen at the early bird special in Boca Raton demanding that the staff put out more croutons and Roquefort dressing in the all-you-can-eat salad bar ... because they've run out AGAIN.
I still love the song. I still hate Patti LuPone.
in concert. The lead was sung by George Hearn (love love LOVE) and Neil Patrick Harris was there, singing his little heart out too. (Who could resist him as he cooed "Nothin's gonna harm you ... not while I'm around"?) Of course Patti "couldn't pick a worse choice for Mrs. Lovitt if you tried" LuPone was also there, pushing her voice through the notes so hard that I though she was trying to power the whole eastern seaboard with her singing alone. It almost ruined the whole experience for me except 1) I got to see George Hearn reprise the role I'd taped off of PBS when I was a teen and 2) Stephen Sondheim made a surprise appearance at the curtain call and I just about fainted and clapped so much it was as if I were trying to power the whole eastern seaboard with clapping alone. Small aside ... I could never be sure but I was almost CERTAIN that one Ms. Monica (dry-cleaning-is-for-suckers ... wait ... I mean NOT-dry-cleaning-is-for-suckers) Lewinsky was in attendance that evening as well. What she was doing there I don't know. Possibly waiting around to flirt with Doogie Howser. See, she's like that -- always picking the wrong guy.That was also the night I found out that when my co-worker said that Patti was a "friend of the family" he actually meant a "friend of a FRIEND". And Patti was not so much a "friend of" a friend so much as a "person being stalked by" a friend. So.
When Evita came out in the late 70s the commercials were blasted at me every 
afternoon during Texas, a short-lived but memorable (at least to me) spin off of Another World. It starred Beverlee McKinsey as Iris Carrington in all her blond dameness ("dame" as in "what's a dame like you doing in a gin joint like this?" ... not "Dame" as in Dame any-British-actress-name-here) along with a bunch of other people who I don't remember because they weren't dames ... which is what I wanted to become when I was a child. A gum chewin' street talkin' dame. (I think I just about made it to 'broad' some time around 5 years ago ... then slid back into 'ma'am'.) So obsessed was I with Iris Carrington that my incessant chatter about her influenced my friend Ookanuba to use the name "Iris" in her very frightening one-page stage play "A Terror for Iris". (Admittedly part of Ookanuba's Juvenilia Canon but nonetheless BRILLIANT.)
There was another character, Kurt Laverty, who my mother and I subsequently saw one year in the late 70s at the Feast of San Gennaro in Little Italy. We promptly followed him around all afternoon watching him and his wife and children. On the way back we bumped into Stiller & Meara. (If you make me qualify that by adding "You know ... Ben Stiller's parents" I will have to take you to school.) New York was like that in those days, with random celebrities popping up during the normal course of a day. (Though truth be told it's like that today too ... I just bumped into Chloe Sevigny yesterday on West 4th and Perry Street ... but I was jabbering on my cell and trying to navigate to Charles Street so I was not that interested in Ms. Sevigny in all her downtown glory.) Point being, I know what it's like to stalk someone for an afternoon. A little boring. Very much. Very boring.
Anyway, I watched Texas every afternoon and the Evita commercial played every afternoon and so my childhood was impressed with this image of Patti stretching out her arm and beseeching Mandy Patinkin to "not keep his distance" and braying "just a little touch of Star Quality" so unintelligibly that for years I had no idea what she was saying. The commercial fascinated me. Her voice distracted me. The whole thing disturbed me. I was hooked on hating her.
So of course you have to understand my complete dismissal of EVITA until many many years later when, in the zenith of my Madonna Worship I lived the story of her journey to play Evita on the big screen. I knew of her seven page entreaty to Alan Parker. I saw her "Take a Bow" video which was shot as such a period piece that there was no mistaking that she was auditioning for the role to the whole wide world. Of course there's also the sub-plot ... Madonna's jump-the-gun ("I'll probably never get married, so I might as well keep this baby since I'm not getting any younger") pregnancy which was kept a secret from Alan Parker until there was no more denying it ... leaving Mr. Parker to cleverly try and disguise her tummy with purses and a children's chorus during the shooting.
The movie (and it's very long lead-in) coincided with me being downsized from a job that was too small for me anyway so I had nothing better to do than spend 6 months rehearsing in my apartment, memorizing the EVITA album and ultimately getting so good at my living room performance that I was able to bring myself to tears EVERY TIME I sang the grand death scene. EVERY TIME. This is a skill shared by me and only one other actress. Yes, Meryl Streep. Just the two of us can cry so convincingly take after take. That's right. JUST US.
At some point, just because the Madonna soundtrack was on a never ending loop I broke down and bought the Patti LuPone version in order to do some field research ... to better round out my nightly living room performances. I think I managed to listen to the Patti version once.
Now, don't get me wrong. I don't consider Madonna the better Evita. Or the better singer, really. Or even the more interesting personality. Not by a long shot. And while I find her softer take on Evita more palatable it is NOT a better interpretation and really only speaks to the limited range of Madonna's acting ability which was only as good as it was because she didn't have to speak. (This is how Holly Hunter won her best actress award for The Piano, you know.) Despite my obsession, I always saw this for what it was: Madonna wanting to be considered a credible actress and refusing to admit that that ship had sailed. To Shanghai, I think. What a surprise.
So ... my vote for best Evita? It's obvious. Elaine Paige.
6 comments:
I'm with ya on the Patti Lupone business. Try as I might, I'm just not that impressed with the reality. In theory, sure - Theater Goddess. In practice, not so much. And though I was very impressed with her tuba playing in Sweeney, I'm pretty sure the Sweeney I directed in 1992 at UMass Amherst was better overall.
Totally remember those Evita commercials...
I have always been mystified over the popularity of Patti Lupone. I am a musical-loving gay cliché and always feel like there is something wrong with me because everyone seems to think she's a musical goddess.
The impression I get is that she thinks she's a much better singer than she really is and nobody is brave enough to tell her to rein in those grating vocal quirks she employs to ruin every song she sings. She does a weird speeding up and slowing down thing accompanied by an inappropriate quiet/loud/quiet/loud weirdness and an angry fog-horn delivery of the longer notes.
Not remotely pleasant to my ears.
I wanted to know I was not alone so I googled "i hate patti lupone" and your blog was the top result.
Thankyou for reassuring me that I'm not alone.
Also, she looks like a drag queen - and not in a good way.
Watch her murder the title song from Anything Goes:
http://www.bluegobo.com/video.php?var=10079
First off, Valpy ... you are not alone. WE are not alone. We're thousands strong! Ever since writing this post over a year ago I've conducted informal polls on this topic and so far no one has come to La Lupone's defense. So ... yay us.
Secondly, thanks for the clip -- really! I love to have more ammunition, let the arsenal keep growing!
And thirdly -- speeding up/slowing down/quiet/loud ... yes, Yes, YES!!! This does not pass for technique. Not in my book ... and not in the great Broadway Book of Show tunes either.
Final thought - I'm number one on Google! WOW!
Seriously?! Not liking Bernadette Peters or Idina Menzel is okay. But, not liking Patti Lupone is like a character flaw. You will never find a voice that powerful anywhere else, unless of course you could resurrect Ethel Merman. Voices like that only turn up every few decades and to have someone not appreciate it just baffles me.
Now, now, Brandon ... "liking" and "appreciating" are two different things. I can choose to not like her infernal braying while still fundamentally appreciating that she's talented. Sadly, I don't appreciate her talent either.
You must be right! Not liking Patti LuPone IS a character flaw! I wonder if there's a support group out there to help the hundreds ... thousands ... afflicted with this same flaw? So many of us, missing the ever-important gene that gifts us with the ability to recognize her for the talent she is. It's sad really ... so sad ...
*hugs* We're not alone! I admit that Patti Lupone is a good dancer. I liked her tap in Anything Goes and I can even enjoy her in a very limited number of songs but it has to fit with a sneer. Watch any video of her singing and at some point the left side of her mouth with shoot up above the gum line and stays there for the rest of the song. And you can hear it!! I'll be going down the road listening to the broadway channel and then its "There goes the lip" and I have to change channels. It works for some of the Mrs Lovett lines; some of the Evita lines and may even work for the Ladies who Lunch next year in concert but until they make a character who's so 1 dimensional to sneer all the time I cannot see her in anything.
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