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Post by Doghouse6 on Oct 29, 2018 22:34:39 GMT
According to the Internet Broadway Database, Townes indeed replaced Wayne in the original production. We did that show in high school and, if I recall, "Og" had at least two song solos. I'd like to have heard Townes's singing voice (perhaps richer than Wayne's, I'd imagine). He quite probably did have a good set of pipes, though a great speaking voice doesn't always equate to talent as a singer, as some actors have demonstrated. But I'd have liked to witness both him and Wayne playing Og, whom I've only ever seen brought to life in the Coppola film, by Tommy Steele (I like the film version rather more than it probably deserves, and Steele--along with Keenan Wynn--is one of the main reasons why). Good point about singing vs speaking voices. And I never thought of Townes as "elfin," but as the photo BATouttaheck posted, he was in those early days. Ah, youth! Funny thing about the Coppola film version: I liked it much more seeing it years later than I did when it was first released. I suppose that after a decade away from them, 1968 audiences were expecting another "Fred Astaire musical," which it very much wasn't, and perhaps in the sociologically-charged atmosphere of the time, a light musical of the immediate postwar period with underlying political and racial commentary was considered miscalculated timing. |
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