And some people don’t mind that. Me? I can’t stand hams, and I can’t stand Nathan Lane.
I just saw The Addams Family musical on Broadway. There are so many things wrong with the show it’s unfair to blame the bomb on him, but he certainly wasn’t helping. I just can’t stand when people mug and prance around in that “BIG SHOWY WAY!” Ugh. It’s pure D amateur. And he had this Spanish “accent” that he decided to go in and out of. Honestly, I wouldn’t have minded him as much as usual except for that dreadful attempt of a crappy accent.
He was on Late Night about a week ago. I purposely watched just to see if maybe he dials it down below 11 in real life. He was WORSE than his usual over done, amateurish, ham fest.
My next post is about he Bebe Neuwirth (as Morticia) can’t act and that her monotone in Cheers was, apparently, real and not “acting.”
Based on the really bad review the show got in the New York Times, I wouldn’t put the blame entirely at Nathan Lane’s feet. It seems that there’s plenty of blame to go round.
Most of the roles Nathan Lane is best known for REQUIRED a hammy performance. Gomez Addams and Max Bialystock are not parts that can or should be played with subtlety and restraint.
Is Lane a good enough actor to play a part effectively with subtlety and restraint? I dunno.
This. Who the hell would go to something like *The Addams Family Musical *and expect to be treated to an evening of delicately nuanced theatre? Lane is more of an entertainer than a serious actor, and his personality is pure schmaltz . . . exactly what is called for in such roles.
Besides being overly hammy, he also comes across as entirely gay. Watching him in the Producers, I just couldn’t buy that he’d be going after the girl. (Of course, Matthew Broderick hardly sold his part either.)
The only non-ham-required role I have seen Lane in was the vision therapist in the Val Kilmer movie* At First Sight*. He was one of the better things about the movie, though the part is not huge.
I think that comes down to personal preference. I don’t go to the theater that often…I see about six performances a year. I’ve seen parts played really well without the in-your-face-aren’t-I-funny style. But more often than not, it’s the ham fest.
Maybe my rant ought to be taken up with directors. I just think “punching up” plays with grotesque physical movements, exaggerated facial expressions, and a lot of ZING! BAM! WOW! is amateurish. It’s also an insult to the audience’s intelligence.
Stage actors are supposed to be more theatrical that movie and TV actors. The audience is too far away to see nuance. All the movies I recall seeing Lane in are comedies where he would be expected to have some dramatic flair.
He did a good job on an episode of Frasier wheere he played Frasier’s identity thief. That wasn’t over-the-top as I recall. I certainly agree though that he’s not worthy of the acting accolades he’s gotten.
I once saw the Michael O’Hare demonstrating the difference between stage and TV/Film acting. He pretended to watch someone cross the room. For TV/Film acting, he just moved his eyes; his face was stationary. For stage acting, he turned his whole head. Broad gestures are needed, and Gomez on stage (even with a good script) is going to be more broad that Gomez on TV.
As for Astin, I saw him in Leading Ladies on stage a few years ago. He went wayyyyy over the top. I’m sure he’d have played Gomez the same way on stage.
I’m fonder of Raul Julia’s take, myself. He was good at playing up the horror of dealing with normality, i.e. fainting at the sight of a curly-haired happy baby.
Nathan Lane was in the second movie, coincidentally, as a desk sergeant. He went with sarcasm and eventually losing his patience with Gomez. Not hammy at all.
Musical cast on Letterman. Within a few seconds of hearing Lane’s crappy accent, I felt the OP’s pain. Over-acting Addamses completely miss the point. I thought the premise is that they were were fairly relaxed and confident in the social circle and the joke was that they would calmly do something outsiders would be horrified at.
Wednesday wants to marry a “normal” boy so she requires the rest of the family to act “normally.” It sapped ALL the fun out of them being The Addams Family.
Oh, I was talking about the premise of the Addams Family in general, i.e. they do these creepy, kooky, altogether ooky things, but to them it’s perfectly normal, if not banal. This is somewhat undercut if they act in an overly theatrical way.
Of course, Lane’s is a literally theatrical adaptation, being on stage and all.
I get the feeling he is trying to be Zero Mostel, who actually could be bigger than the play he was in. Zero was a scene stealer . Nathan can be an irritant.
That pretty much sums up the current archetype/stereotype of the popular Broadway actor. Broadway is not entertainment for the general public anymore: it’s ritual for a subculture. The groups in the subculture, the ritual of the theater, and its tendency to be self-referential, define Broadway today.
Some important - dare I say privileged? - subcultures in today’s theater audience are gays, who have been a constant presence in the theater for so long that it’s hard to say which has done more for the other; New Yorkers, as guardians of culture and celebrators of difference; and Jews, who play important roles as creators, consumers, and culture-keepers (Lane and Broderick are both half Jewish, FWTW).