This year's Tony Awards
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Linda Lavin
mark.waltz — 13 years ago(May 20, 2012 11:54 AM)
The two categories that are the toughest are Leading Actress in a Play, as well as Leading Actress in a Musical. While both Stockard Channing (Linda's co-star from "Other Desert Cities") and Tracie Bennett ("End of the Rainbow") have won awards, the quality of the nominees is the toughest it has been in years. It is as if this is the 1930's or 40's and the nominees for Actress in a Play were Judith Anderson, Tallulah Bankhead, Katharine Cornell, Helen Hayes or Lynne Fontanne.
Linda's performance in "The Lyons" is one that will remain in theatrical history like Judith Anderson's "Medea", only Lavin's mother character doesn't sacrifice her childrenshe slaughters them with her tongue! I didn't like the woman (how could you?), but I empathized with her. She's definately not going to blame herself for how her children turned out and isn't going to let them make her feel guilty, either. It's a total comment on society on how everything is always blamed now a days on the parents, and this mother is saying, "Get over it, and get a life!" The only thing missing was a speech from her character about how her generation didn't blame their parents (they rarely do!) and how this generation should stop putting the blame on their parents mistakes and take the inititive themselves to change things if they need to be changed. Quite a great theme that makes for wonderful Broadway drama. Bravo, Linda!