Why Sam’s a very modern Pretty Woman
SAMANTHA BARKS plays the title role in a musical based on the 1990 film Pretty Woman — and she’s phenomenal.
Just last week Patti LuPone was telling me how women are emboldened to be goddesses again. And when I saw Ms Barks on Sunday night, I thought: ‘Yeah, there’s one taking a bow centre stage right now.’
I was surrounded by women at the last performance at Chicago’s Oriental Theatre, where the show had a sold-out five week ‘outta town’ try-out.
The ladies I spoke to loved it — and they had watched the film, starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere, many times. So they were very familiar with the tale of debonair corporate raider Edward Lewis (afraid of heights and unable to hold down a relationship) who meets Vivian (a big-hearted prostitute who works the less charming part of Hollywood Boulevard).
They come to a business arrangement in his penthouse hotel suite: he dresses her up and she becomes his arm candy. How would that work in 2018? ‘I wanted Vivian to be able to take care of herself,’ director Jerry Mitchell told me. In the movie, there’s a scene where Edward’s lawyer hits Vivian.
‘Edward comes in and rescues her, but I knew I had to have Vivian beat the lawyer and take charge. She’s not the one who needed rescuing,’ Mitchell said. And he predicted that the role would make a big star of Barks: ‘What playing Vivian did for Julia Roberts, it will do for Samantha.’
I met Barks for a split second after the show, and then she was off for final-show champagne with cast mates including Steve Kazee as Edward, Orfeh as ‘best friend’ Kit, Eric Anderson as the hotel manager-cum-fairy godfather, and Allison Blackwell — who performs in one of the best-staged scenes, when Edward and Vivian attend the opera.
Lead producer Paula Wagner told me Mitchell and his team, plus Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance, who wrote the music and lyrics, would be making changes to the show for New York.
I could see how they would improve the piece. ‘That’s what try-outs are for,’ Mitchell declared.