Posted by Jenny
on 12/30/2008, 11:51 pm
69.203.29.213
First of all, please forgive me for two reasons.... 1) it's late and i'm tired and 2) I'm pregnant and my memory isn't working quite the same way these days...
So this was my first time being inside of Sardi's and I really loved the atmosphere! You just feel like you're somewhere...important when you walk inside. The show was upstairs on the second floor and when I arrived, I was greeted by a huge line of people waiting to be seated. While standing in said line, who appears? Jim! Just walking around, mingling with the crowd, talking to the people he knows. That was fun to see.
So finally I was seated (not at the bar where my ticket was for...woo!) and then I waited and waited and waited for the waiter to come. There was supposed to be a $25 minimum for food/drinks, but he didn't come til the very last minute! Strange. But they're busy, I guess...
James started at about 5 min to 9. The place was fairly well packed... I'd say about 50-60 people were there. He opened with "This is the moment" and then went into a christmas song (there goes the memory....). Then he talked a little bit and sang some more and talked and then taked about Jane Eyre! He was mentioning how every character he has played on Broadway either dies or gets horribly mamed.... he started out with talking about how as Rochester his house burned down and he was horribly burned on one side and blind in one eye. But he was like -I got the girl, though, so it's ok! He mentioned that Marla was there (to major applause) and said that she was THE Jane Eyre... that the show wasn't called Jane Eyre and Rochester... that it was Jane Eyre. Then he talked about the poster for the show and how it had a huge, beautiful picture of Marla front and center and a tiny little blurred image of him in the back. 
He then sang some more and then introduced a young duo (girl and guy) to sing "Baby it's cold outside." He talked about how he's always wanted to help people and he's gotten a lot of help along the way, so he wanted to give young people like them a chance to perform in an arena they might not normally get to perform in.
Then one of his co-actors (forget his name!) from Tale of Two Cities (i think... oh geez) came and sang a song, and then he introduced Marla! Woohoooo! It was quite the introduction, too. I believe his exact words were... "And speaking of a lot of pooping..." hahaha. He joked about how he thought of her as more of a sister and how they are always joking around with each other (about poo, apparently....lol). So then he brought Marla up and they joked around a little and then he said that they weren't going to be singing any songs from Jane Eyre (to which the audience let out a laaarge awwwwwwww). Then Jim said that they didn't have enough time to prepare a song together with the musical director, so marla would be singing by herself.
Marla (who got her hair cut short and looks fabulous!!!) was wearing Jeans and looked great... she talked about wearing her Hanukkah socks (which inexplicably had a pair of teddy bears on them) and how she wanted to sing a song that was near and dear to her heart this holiday season. She sang her song - it's hard to be a Jew on Christmas. It was really funny and made the crowd laugh. After the song was over, they went into a whole south park bit about (forgive me, I don't watch the show....) Mr. Hankie poo? Someone sounding like that? Jim did a little bit of his gypsy character and then said he just used the voice of mr. hankie for that whole part.
The only other mention of JE was when Jim said one night, he was downstage and instead of saying his lines, he kind of said something like "Blah blah blah blah." He was like - the magic of live theater! He said after he said it, he looked over at Don Richard who was totally cracking up.
He talked a lot about his other shows and his daughter (and tons of poopy diapers) and his wife and his mother (They were very, very close) and living in LA and shows he's done in California and Assassins and Frank Wildhorn and how much we are all the same people and how he's been labled as dark and brooding on broadway. He talked about his audition for Assassins. He talked about visiting his in-laws in Hawaii, about how he met his wife doing Carousel.
There were many audience interaction bits... he had everyone sing along to Mele Kalikimaka (hawaiian "Merry Christmas") and had different tables sing different parts of The Twelve Days of Christmas. That was funny and everyone enjoyed themselves.
Ok... I'm starting to fade. I'll just end with this. He sang that Christmas Josh Groban song (escaping me right now... but it's been on the radio every five seconds..."If you just beliiiiieeeeve").. and it was AMAZING. 10x better than Josh Groban. That song and him singing O Holy Night were worth the price of admission alone. O Holy Night is my favorite Christmas song (Kathey...remember when we were going to do that CD? I thought of you when he sang this!) and he NAILED it. I'd even go so far as to say that was my favorite all-time version of the song.
Afterwords I got to talk to Marla for a few minutes, which was fabulous as always... such a great person. The line to talk to Jim was too long and I was tired, so off I fled into the night....
It was a great show!
Jenny
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