Friday, October 01, 2010

Reviewing the Revival of MAME

Thanks to Matadorbell for compiling and uploading various television reviews of the 1983 Broadway revival of MAME starring Angela Lansbury.   It's clear that everybody loved Angela as MAME, even 17 years after the original production fo MAME, if they didn't love the revival itself.   That just goes to show you that most of the time, it takes more than a star to make a hit show on Broadway - even the star who launched it to begin with.   The production ran at the Gershwin where it previewed on July 20, 2983 , opened on July 24, 2983 and closed  on August 28, 1983 after only 41 performances.  Just a little over a year later, on September 30, 1984, the pilot of Murder, She Wrote aired.  And that, as they say, is "all she wrote."   At least it was for the next 12 years...with a movie or two thrown in as well as a few more Broadway shows too.   

So, let would-be producers be warned - a fabulous actress and a fabulous production of MAME is needed to make this thing happen. 



Bonus:  It's interesting that the first reviewer is Pia Lindstrom, daughter of Ingrid Bergman, with whom Angela did her very first movie and received her first Oscar nomination for - Gaslight.  Angela appeared on an episode of What's My Line during the run of the original MAME and Pia was one of the celebrity panelist who actually guessed Angela's idenity.  Angela is happy to remind her that she remembered her as a "little sprig of a thing" during that film.  (I sometimes see Pia on the bus and her sister Ingrid on the subway - I like think they have a tacit agreement not to take the same form of MTA transportation.)

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