Go on then, let's start - I personally think Mrs. Lovett and Sweeney Todd are without a doubt THE most difficult roles in musical theatre, musically/vocally, mentally, physically, they're just extremely difficult, but ultimately very rewarding if done well.
Any other roles?
The Baker's Wife, apparently, is one of the trickiest roles in Musical Theatre - Why so?
The Baker's Wife is the trickiest because Into The Woods is a gigantic ensemble piece and an actress who isn't strong enough can get lost.
The show is centered around The Baker and His Wife. This is the "new" fairy tale which exists as the plot line in which to tie all of the other familiar fairy tales together. It is because of their curse and their journey that we encounter everyone else. The Baker and The Baker's Wife are the leads of the show.
Bad direction and/or bad casting can accentuate other characters in the piece instead and then the show doesn't work. The Witch is not the lead. She's actually one of the smaller characters. Cinderella definitely isn't the lead, but she does come close because at the end she assumes the role of The Baker's Wife after she dies. In the Broadway revival Kerry O'Mally and Stephen DeRosa were so uninteresting that they fading into the large ensemble of players... Laura Benanti as Cinderella stood out as Cinderella from the opening scene and somehow her story with her prince were given prominence in the piece.
In other words, you HAVE to care about The Baker and The Baker's Wife. Even if everyone is played 2-dimensional, you have to feel for the two of them. They can't just be funny, they have to be touching. You have to care when The Baker's Wife is killed. It's the pivotal moment of the show. You have to feel something for The Baker when he's left to deal with the aftermath. You have to witness him "grow up" from being a childish man who depended on his wife to do everything for him and be a father himself... all the while having to deal with daddy issues of his own. All of the other characters don't have large enough arcs. Now, a great production will make you feel for and be invested in everyone in the show, but The Baker and The Baker's Wife must be the most prominent.
I've often thought Desiree in NIGHT MUSIC was a tough one to crack. Not only do you have "The Song", but you must balance true pathos with high comedy, which is very tricky indeed. Catherine Zeta Jones and Bernadette, while quite good, didn't quite nail it.
Gloria in "They Shoot Horses, Don't They" is really tricky. Don't know if that counts since the show didn't make it to Broadway, but it seems a great challenge to get the audience to like her. I don't totally get it, as I think she's a fantastic character.
Joanne in Company because she is both a master manipulator and a woman with a very loving soul that she hides from absolutely everyone with a gloss of jaded bitterness. Her big scene includes both a showstopping and highly challenging song and requires her to be subtly conniving and appear revoltingly self-absorbed to Bobby but never to the audience. Because it must be clear that she is motivated by and using her craft for true friendship, not mere lust. Unless the actress playing the role knows exactly what she is doing, the end of the show lands with a sour and desperate thud.
The Baker's Wife is an everywoman with very ordinary dreams. In order for this wonderful musical to soar, she must be irresistibly warm and endearing, uncommonly wise and commonly fallible, never appear as if she is trying too hard to accomplish her objectives, and have the lightest comic touch. The audience must adore her. Though all the while she is surrounded by flashier characters with flashier musical numbers, she must remain the heart and soul of the show. No other great role in musical theater requires so much economy and natural authority and charm.
"...The show is centered around The Baker and His Wife. This is the "new" fairy tale which exists as the plot line in which to tie all of the other familiar fairy tales together..."
This is true. But I always like to point out, for clarity sake, that the back story of the baker's parents and their problems with the witch and her garden and all that leading up to the curse and taking the baby is not "new" or created by Lapine as some people can think. It is the real back story to Rapunzel in the Grimm books (as it also is in ITW.) They just added the "new" baker into that story, as Rapunzel's brother, with the addition of him having a quest to get the spell reversed.
From the link: "A lonely couple, who want a child, live next to a walled garden belonging to an enchantress. The wife, experiencing the cravings associated with the arrival of her long-awaited pregnancy, notices a Rapunzel plant (or, in some versions[7] of the story, rampion, growing in the garden and longs for it, desperate to the point of death. On each of two nights, the husband breaks into the garden to gather some for her; on a third night, as he scales the wall to return home, the enchantress, "Dame Gothel," catches him and accuses him of theft. He begs for mercy, and the old woman agrees to be lenient, on condition that the then-unborn child be surrendered to her at birth. Desperate, the man agrees. When the baby girl is born, the enchantress takes the child to raise as her own, and names the baby Rapunzel. Rapunzel grows up to be the most beautiful child in the world with long golden hair. When Rapunzel reaches her twelfth year, the enchantress shuts her away in a tower in the middle of the woods, with neither stairs nor a door, and only one room and one window. When the witch visits Rapunzel, she stands beneath the tower..."
Playbilly: I saw the original production of WEST SIDE STORY and thus saw Larry Kert as Tony. He was more than satisfying; he was terrific in both his love scenes with Maria and in his dealings with his friends in the Jets. His death felt truly tragic. And Larry Kert was an excellent singer as well. His "Maria" is definitive. Listen to the OBCR and you will hear a trained singer.
You've all named roles that are demanding, yes, but infinitely rewarding. If you get through, you will always get a rousing ovation at the end. I think the REALLY difficult roles are the ones that are demanding and yet leave the audience with little or nothing to take away- the role of the Mayor in Fiddler on the Roof comes to mind.
Using JoeKv99's great definition of what a "difficult" role really is, I submit Franklin Shepard: ostensibly the musical's lead (if you go by the script), he does comparatively little singing (even with the revisions) despite being a composer. He kicks off the evening being broken and unlikeable, and somehow must work backward from that to win over the audience by the final curtain. He must accomplish this despite having to act as a gigantic douchebag throughout the entirety of Act I, so that literally every other lead can verbally smack him down in a series of showstoppers. He needs to be the musical theatre version of Archie Bunker--the vulnerable asshole antihero--yet it isn't until the final 20 minutes or so that we really see the qualities that made Mary and Charley fall in love with him. Even if an actor can nail all of this (and I've never seen one who can), he will never earn the same plaudits that the actors who play Mary and Charley get. Truly a horrible, thankless role.
If we're going by Joe's definition, I'd say Enjolras in Les Misérables to a certain extent. He's the least recognised of the leads but is arguably the most difficult to sing and act (the trickiness of him not just coming across as a total douchebag, for example).
The Phantom comes to mind. Why would anybody care about this brooding childish nut job who kills people, stalks/kidnaps a young girl and threatens people left and right? Some actors, through acting or vocal quality, can make the audience feel sorry for the character by in some way humanizing him. I do not think Crawford could do this, he was too ethereal and full of himself. Panaro is simply too childish with his mannerisms. The late Steve Barton was the closest as he was so tortured and had a certain vocal quality that oozed sympathy. But some actors who play the role just yell yell yell or simper simper simper. I think it is a difficult role to pull off.
Another might be Javert. Not really a bad guy at all, just very determined and stuck in his mindset of the law.....is he wrong? Not really. I have not seen him, but from what I have read, Varela is doing a great job humanizing him on tour now. But other actors I have seen are SO SO one note! Angry angry angry at every point they are on stage. Most of the Javert actors have not pulled it off, but sometimes they do. David Burt (a long time ago in London) was great.
By the hoo, agree with the Baker/Baker's Wife revival comments. SO SO SO SO miscast and underplayed. Every time they were on stage, I was hoping the 3 little pigs would run on and ram them into the pit.
I agree Tsao, in addition to The Phantom being difficult to act, he's also extremely difficult to sing - the music covers most of the baritone range, and then some! Really, you need a baritone who can sing down to a bottom Ab comfortably whose range extends to sing the top Ab whilst also sounding commanding!
And I've never seen a Javert I've been completely satisfied with. Everybody raves over Earl Carpenter (currently playing the role in London) and while he is fantastic, he's never completely won me over (I've seen him 3 times) - still, he wasn't as bad as Hans Peter Janssens.
The least effective I've seen so far though, is definitely Hadley Fraser. No doubt due to his age, but it was two and a half hours of "I'M ANGRY SO I'M SHOUTING."
I wouldn't say that Mrs. Lovett is extremely challenging vocally...but it's no walk in the park either.
I think one of hardest parts about those two roles is probably something not in the script.
I've seen regional productions and Mrs. Lovett is played Eccentric and it's probably because that's the way Angela Lansbury played her, while Sweeney Todd is played solemn and quiet because that's how Len Cariou and George Hearn played him.
Also...it's pretty difficult to convince an audience to feel for the character of Sweeney Todd when he takes revenge on innocent men.
Phantom isnt really tricky... Hes not onstage all that much and your not allowed to do anything with the role except sing it EXACTELY as it wasd done originally. Its a dull role.
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Posted: 5/11/12 at 04:44pm