Will you be watching the NBC LIVE production of The Sound of Music tonight? It stars Carrie Underwood as Maria and Stephen Moyer as Captain Von Trapp. It also stars Audra McDonald, Laura Benanti, Christian Borle, Ariane Rinehart, Michael Campanyo.
The 3 hour production, based on the 1959 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical (NOT the beloved movie, starring Julie Andrews) will be performed completely LIVE on a soundstage. Anything could happen! And might.
Windmills will be back later with a review. In the meantime, chat amongst yourselves, and enjoy.
Snapshot review: Well, I was entertained. Sure, there were clunky moments (some of which reveal how the film improved on the stage production, others that may have been the by-product of time limits, and others still that the film couldn’t solve either) and the pacing and flow weren’t always ideal (more on this later).
Audra McDonald was transcendent, not only as a singer, but simply as a presence. Christian Borle saved what I thought were some saggy scenes in the middle hour (his entrance injected some needed levity at the time), and he and Laura Benanti (especially Benanti) had one of the production’s finest moments during “No Way To Stop It.” Stephen Moyer, who came through with a nice assist on “No Way To Stop It,” probably had his best moment when the kids singing “The Sound Of Music” hit him. Though at times I thought he played too big for the cameras, I was genuinely moved by the way he played his revelatory sequence. He also seemed to loosen up (in a good way) when he sang, and I thought he wooed Maria charmingly. I found myself wishing there was a little more time in the middle hour to develop the family’s connection, to really bring home the idea that Captain von Trapp was a changed father.
As for Ms. Underwood, her singing was absolutely wonderful. Her delivery & diction left something to be desired in dialogue-heavy scenes, but for me, there was an overall innocence and purity to Carrie’s presence that made me feel kindly towards Maria (though I also felt at times that Maria was too passive – true, perhaps, but not super-satisfying in this day & age). The improvement in Carrie’s overall performance when she was singing was apparent, and she really did a terrific job during her musical numbers.
More to come…
