Category: Laura Benanti

So (Yes, I Almost Typed “Sew”), About That “Sound Of Music Live” Show….

December 6, 2013 / Posted by:

A good old-fashioned, family-friendly musical about a nun turned home wrecking gold digger should be one of my favorites, but The Sound of Music never totally did it for me. The Baroness aside, it lacks the glamour, rhinestones and exposed nipples I look for in a musical with Nazi shit in it (see: Cabaret). So I wasn’t one of those hos screaming, “BLASPHEMY! JULIE ANDREWS CANNOT BE REPLACED! I’M GOING TO BURN THIS CITY DOWN,” while going into last night’s 13-hour-long Sound of Music snoozetacular. Julie Andrews wasn’t the first Maria and there’s been a million Marias after her. It’s not like the role of Maria is as sacred as the role of Cristal Connors in Showgirls. It’s just Maria! But when Carrie Underwood started acting, I sort of became one of those crazed Julie Andrews groupies.

Carrie Underwood put the wood in Underwood. Her singing and yodeling were good, but her talking… Those community theater set pieces were more captivating and human than her. My iPhone is in the red and it has more life in it than Carrie did last night. Shit, even if it died it would have more life in it. For a second there I thought that maybe Carrie is a thespian genius and was making a controversial acting choice. Maybe she was playing Maria as though Maria was brainwashed by Hitler and was working as a spy for the Nazis. She had a glazed look in her eyes like her brain had been taken over by another force. If she was playing one of Tommy Girl’s beard wives, she would’ve nailed it!

Even her damn praying wasn’t believable! Carrie is practically the Christian golden child and she couldn’t even fake pray right. God was up there thinking to himself, “Err, put some stank on it, my child.” But Carrie did bring something new to the role. When Mother Abbess tells Maria through song to climb that man and get that dick, I saw something I’ve never seen in that scene before. When Mother Abbess sang “Cliiiiiiiiiimb every mountaaaaaaiiiin, search high and low, ” she really wanted to sing, “Cliiiiiimb out that windaaaaaah, get outta my face.” Mother Abbess didn’t care about Maria finding her true life. Mother Abbess just wanted Maria to get out of her life. I see you, Mother Abbess. I see you trying to pawn Maria off on Captain Von Trapp, because her lack of human emotions and animatronic mannerisms are creeping you out. Right after Maria left the abbey, Mother Abbess probably called Captain Von Trapp up and told him that if he doesn’t take Maria off her back she’ll tell everyone he’s a vampire.

And as for Vampire Beeeehl….. I’m going to assume that Vampire Beehl was suffering from a serious case of diarrhea and clenched his ass cheeks the entire time. If he put too much umpf into his singing, his chonies would’ve come alive with the sound of squirting.

On a positive note, Audra McDonald and Laura Benanti stole every scene they were in and saved the show. Captain Von Trapp should’ve been arrested when he chose the wooden Swiss Miss statue over the glamorous Baroness Elsa!

Despite the Carrie Underwood hate, the Sound of Music Live! was a hit and had huge ratings. So I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before NBC announces that next December they will do West Side Story Live! starring Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus as Maria and Tony respectively. Yeah, they’re doing the all-black version.

After the cut are most of the performances from last night.  Continue reading

src="https://c.statcounter.com/922697/0/f674ac4a/1/"
alt="drupal analytics" >