Christian Borle's replacement

[dramamama611]

Well, to be fair, replacements do NOT get significant rehearsal time. They get some rehearsal with the stage manager and some understudies. It is not uncommon for their first run with the entire cast to be their first performance.

A lot of their prep time is WATCHING the show.

That being said, since MOST audience members could care less about whether it is the actor's first or 101st performance. And they deserve not to know/care.

Its hard to judge grosses the week AFTER the Tony Award winning actor leaves. Their grosses were strong from the Tonys and because Borle was leaving. It's not like this was playing to 100% capacity through most of its run and took a nose dive when Borle left. The last few weeks lots of folks made sure to catch it before he left.

In fact, Peter only made it into the 90% capacity during Borle's last two weeks. It's only averaging some like a 75% capacity throughout its' run.


Grosses for Peter's run.

[newintown]

On Broadway, every major character's replacement gets at least one put-in rehearsal with the full cast, if not more.

[Kelly2]

"Well, to be fair, replacements do NOT get significant rehearsal time. They get some rehearsal with the stage manager and some understudies. It is not uncommon for their first run with the entire cast to be their first performance."

That's not true. It is 100% required that replacements get a put-in with the full cast, as newintown said, and they usually have 2 weeks of rehearsal with the dance captain, musical director, stage manager, other understudies, and sometimes if they're lucky with some of the creative team. Though that all obviously depends on how large the part is and how "important" the replacement is.

Broadway is always, replacement or not, about having your feet put to the fire. It's not an easy career and always being "on" when you set foot on that stage is a huge part of it. There are very few legitimate excuses for not giving your best performance for a crowd of people who have paid 100$ to see you, and "I didn't have enough time to rehearse" is not one of them.

[HBP]

I saw the show for the second time last night and I must say, it hasn't lost any of its magic. Matthew Saldivar holds his own and the rest of the cast is just as great as it was a few months ago. My family, seeing it for the first time, loved the show and Saldivar. There were a few moments where I was thinking "Christian Borle made that way funnier," but he wasn't too sorely missed as Saldivar was pretty hilarious at times. I'm glad I saw Borle and definitely think he was the best part of a great ensemble & deserved that Tony, but I would absolutely still recommend the show, if you haven't seen it yet!

[little_sally]

I saw the show again last night and while I really liked Matthew Saldivar in the role (and I'm a big fan of his in general), I really did miss Christian Borle. Borle was a bit more outrageous in the role, and Blackstache's final scene really worked better with him.

[The Distinctive Baritone]

From what I have read here, we may have a case of a "serious" classical actor (who has done a couple of musicals) stepping into a role that requires a level of camp he may not feel comfortable producing. But I haven't seen the show so I dunno...

[little_sally]

I think that's right; the camp is definitely, definitely missing from Saldivar's performance. The line about the crocodile eating the scenery didn't land as well last night because of that.

[ChairinMain]

Just to weigh in/restart this discussion...

I saw the show on the 18th (My birthday, as a matter of fact) and by now it seems like Saldivar has definitely gotten ahold of the camp. I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the 2+ minutes of silent agony he has managed to insert into the final scene (the "Ohmigod" moment, so not to spoil it too badly for the uninitiated). I loved the choice...you want to talk about over the top? Try milking a reaction take for two minutes without saying a word. The laughter buildt, died down, and then would ripple through the audience, but never totally stopped. It was great comedy. It went from funny to hilarious to funny to amusing to funny again to hilarious. Brilliant. Is this something of Borle's? I don't recall him doing it, at least not in the preview performance I caught.

While I may have preferred Borle's absolute madness in the long run, Saldivar had an insanity all his own and is easily up to the role's bizarro physical comedy. It doesn't hurt that with the Stache, he REALLY resembles Groucho Marx. They've added a gag into his first entrance so he now comes in with a cigar; it's sidesplitting. Bravo. Curious to hear the thoughts of anyone else whose seen the show recently.

I'd also like to add that I saw Understudy Jason Ralph as the Boy, who was very fine indeed.

[Movidude742]

I saw one of Borle's final weeks, and then again at the end of Septemeber. I thought Saldivar was pretty good. I did particularly like the way his stache and some of his moments were nice riffs on Groucho Marx.

I had enough distance between performances that he did not suffer from comparison as I was watching.