A tale (tail?) of two remakes

Firstly, you need to understand how deeply the 1994 film version of Little Women and the 1998 television film version of Cats are imbedded in the childhoods of my children. The Thomas Newman score of Little Women was part of my "birthing tape" for second daughter; that's how much I loved the music. Elder daughter, of course, adored the movie from a very young age. As for Cats, we had a wavering VHS of the 1998 television version, which both girls played over and over.

I've probably told this story before, but when elder daughter was taking ballet lessons at age six, younger daughter and I would wait in the office area, where we could catch glimpses of the lessons. One evening, I watched in disbelief as younger daughter, age two, stretched and arched in the darkened corridor outside the studios, clearly imitating this moment:

I had been rather dreading the 2019 version of Cats. Despite my daughters' enthusiasm, I'd been exposed to this musical years earlier, and frankly, I'm not overly fond of it, and the director Tom Hooper's version of Les Miserables is two hours and forty minutes I'll never get back. This version of Cats has been assailed by horrendous (and hilarious) reviews. A pack of elder daughter's musical-loving, but Cats-loathing pals in Hades got drunk to go see it.

There were few people in our Victoria matinée -- they appeared to be sober. And oh, it could have been worse. The mistake, I think, was trying to give Cats a plot. Also sticking out like a sore thumb, hip-hop dancers in 1930's London. And Rebel Wilson, whose schtick didn't quite work here.


However, I didn't mind most of the performances. I was fine with Taylor Swift as Bombalurina, and even her song, co-written with Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber. I've always been a fan of Steven McRae, a premieur danseur of the Royal Ballet, and his rapid-fire tap-dance as Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat (which isn't a tap-dance in the original musical). Sir Ian McKellen as Gus the Theatre Cat? Perfect, of course.

The Resident Fan Boy slept through the bulk of the movie, claimed he hadn't, and was hurt when I disagreed with his opinion on performances he hadn't seen. Younger daughter adored it, of course. Elder daughter resolutely refused to see it, but insisted that we all attend the latest version of Little Women together.


I had been worried by the trailers of this Little Women, that they would add anachronistic music and dance moves. Actually, they stuck quite closely to the period -- Jo's clothes are a little more mannish than you'd expect, but that's in keeping with Alcott's Jo. Demeter, who didn't attend, would have been driven crazy by the use of flashbacks, as the movie begins in the 1870's, and Jo remembers the events in episodes, which are filmed in a golden filter; the "present" is signalled by a blue filter.

I'd also worried, having read reviews, that it would be too similar to the 1994 version. I adored that version, but I don't go to cinemas to see copies. All the things in the 2019 Little Women that the critics praised seemed to be what you could say equally of the 1994 Little Women. However - I remembered with a pang - 1994 was 25 years ago. Each Little Women - the 1930s Katherine Hepburn one, the 1949 June Allyson one, the rather ghastly 1970s one with, heaven help us, William Shatner as Professor Bhaer - reflects its time. This current telling is a post-#MeToo take on the story. Although faithful to time and place, the injustices of being a woman in the late 19th Century are voiced a little more loudly, clearly, and insistently than even Louisa May Alcott would dare.

A young woman on one side of me sniffled a little at Beth's demise. Younger daughter reported that the Resident Fan Boy wept quite a bit. I didn't weep, but I was moved. Elder daughter, seated on my other side, was not. She pronounced a definite preference for the 1994 Little Women, so much a part of her childhood. She felt Timothée Chalomet was miscast as Laurie, because, in her opinion, he didn't mature with the part. Younger daughter clearly thought that Timothée Chalomet was the perfect Laurie, no doubt because she thinks he's dreamy.

Well, they're sisters, and very different - like the March girls. For my part, I'm glad my first exposure to Little Women was through the novels themselves. This seems to allow me to not get too attached to the films, as Jo, Meg, Beth, and Amy were known to me long before. I won't mind seeing this Little Women again. I can't say the same for Cats, but I have a feeling I'll be sitting through it whenever younger daughter has the yen.

Did you know Jake Gyllenhaal could sing? Me neither.

We've been entertaining a cousin from England this week, so, although I have several blog entries nearly ready, I'm falling back on a YouTube video that showed up when I was searching for something else.

This is Jake Gyllenhaal singing an oddly repressed version of "Finishing the Hat" from Stephen Sondheim's musical Sunday in the Park with George, but that's not the point.

The point is:
a) he's singing a difficult song (Sondheim's ditties are no walk in the park, even if they're from a musical entitled Sunday in the Park with George);
b) he's singing while descending a staircase;
c) I didn't know he could sing at all.

Have a listen.

I know it sounds a bit bizarre

After a weekend of musical theatre - which I'll tell you about tomorrow, all being well -- I was in the mood for something shorter, but equally as musically pleasing and witty.


Gawd I love this guy. The production values, the incisive (with considerable incisors) commentary, the clever lyrics, the wigs, the pink pussy hats....

Cold water wash

I don't want to complain, but I'm battling a spring cold, which is only a shade less unnatural than a summer cold.

Periodically bursting into lopsided nasal showers, I do the relay up and down the stairs to the laundry room. Sharing machines with the thirty-four other units in the building is something I haven't had to do for years. Doing it with a cold is even less fun.

Young daughter is rehearsing this song for her spring recital. I find myself tearing up a little as I listen, partly because I'm sick, partly because it's a song sung by a girl with her arm in a sling because her boyfriend beats her and she's dreaming of a life with a kind man, and partly because -- dammit -- I miss having my own washer and dryer.

Staring at my hands

I played this for younger daughter in preparation for seeing a local production of Working. I've loved this song by James Taylor for years.

Now, my grandfather was a sailor
He blew in off the water.
My father was a farmer
and I his only daughter.

Took up with a no-good
mill-working man from Massachusetts
who dies from too much whiskey,
and leaves me these three faces to feed.

Mill-work ain't easy.
Mill-work ain't hard.
Mill-work, it ain't nothing
but an awful humdrum boring job.

I'm waiting for a daydream
to take me through the morning,
and put me in my coffee break
where I can have a sandwich
and remember...

Then it's me and my machine
for the rest of the morning,
for the rest of the afternoon,
and the rest of my life.

Now my mind begins to wander
to the days back on the farm.
I can see my father smiling at me,
swinging on his arm.
I can hear my grandad's stories
of the storms out on Lake Erie,
where vessels and cargos and fortunes
and sailors' lives were lost.

Yes, but it's my life has been wasted,
and I have been a fool
to let this manufacturer
use my body for a tool.

I ride home in the evening
staring at my hands,
swearing by my sorrows
that a young girl ought to
stand a better chance.

So may I work the mills,
just as long as I am able,
and never ever meet the man
whose name is on the label.

What is essential

Whenever I think of Gene Wilder, I see him sitting in a wheat field, pretending to be a fox.

Hello, I must be going

I hurried up Vancouver Street on one of my last evenings of this year's Victoria visit. It was an achingly beautiful August evening, full of golden light and memories.  I was, after all, passing through my old neighbourhood.  When I last lived in it, my children were tiny.

I was on my way to the Blue Bridge Theatre's production of Animal Crackers: a) because Blue Bridge does pretty damn good theatre - many of the actors have impressive CVs - and b) because I've adored the Marx Brothers since I was seventeen.  Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and (sometimes) Zeppo helped me survive high school.

During my final nightmarish spring of secondary education, I was staying in the dorms at the University of Victoria for a brief, province-wide drama workshop.

Our teacher had summoned us to a late-night reading of the riot act about drugs and alcohol at the conference.  (This was rich; said teacher was a notorious party animal.)  I had decided that, having partaken of neither, I was too damn tired to sit through a hypocritical harangue after a day of workshops and performances.  I was one of the few without a room-mate, so I was drifting off to the soundtrack of Duck Soup, when someone came hammering on my door.

It was Arty, a diminutive redhead in my sister's grade, whose voice had not yet changed.

"What is it?" I called out crossly.
"Mr Carr says you gotta come to the meeting."
"I've gone to bed, Arty.  I don't drink."

Pause.  The Marx Brothers were warbling "All God's Children Got Guns".

Bang-bang-bang.
"Are you coming?"
"No, Arty."

Pause. Oh hidey-hidey-hidey-hidey-hidey-hidey-ho....

"Please?  He says you gotta...."
"F*#& off, Arty!"

People told me afterwards that Arty was seen forlornly drifting into the meeting, muttering:  ". . . and she told me to f*#& off. . . ."

(About ten years later, Arty was killed in a freak accident involving something like a wood chipper.  I used to know the details, but frankly, I've preferred not to think about it.  Poor Arty.)

I shook off the past and entered into the past offered by The Blue Bridge Theatre's production of Animal Crackers - a version of the 1920s where there was swing-dancing.  Odd.

As in common in these days of little funds for the arts, most of the actors doubled up on roles with the exception of those playing Groucho (RJ Peters) and Harpo (Britt Small).  Wes Borg, playing Chico, also appeared briefly as a bum.  Like Harpo, the ingenue male lead was played by a woman, presumably for her dancing skills.  But you know, it's not like anything in the Marx Brothers' universe made a helluva lotta sense to begin with.

The play featured the elements that Animal Crackers is known for:  "Hooray for Captain Spaulding" with "Hello, I Must Be Going"; the "strange interlude" sequence -- and several elements that aren't from Animal Crackers:  "Everybody Says I Love You", which featured in the Marx Brothers movie Horsefeathers and "Three Little Words", which didn't, but like the other ditties, was a Kalmer and Ruby composition.

During the first act, I was grateful to not be seated in the front row, as they became Groucho fodder.  However, I was seated alone in the second row (it was a preview night), and as the lights went down at the end of the intermission, and a romantic duet began, Groucho plopped into the seat next to me.
Oh gawd, I thought.
"He's not bad, is he?  Sounds just like Michael Bublé." (This was a running gag.)
I nodded agreeably and wished he would go away.

At this point, Chico came hawking popcorn down the aisle, and shot a bag at Groucho.  I noted that not a single kernel had spilt, and gingerly pulled one loose when Groucho obligingly held out the bag to me.  I ditched it after he loped back on to the stage.

The extravaganza ended with a dizzying pastiche of parodies from recent Broadway blockbusters -- after the first curtain call.  Groucho appeared at centre-stage and declared:  "One of the advantages of being dead for the last forty years is that I haven't had to see any of these!"

I wished, once again, that younger daughter could have seen this.  She would have loved the singing, the dancing, the costumes, and the physical humour.

I managed to catch the 10:30 Quadra and set off at a race-walk from Pandora.  This had been a golden fifteen-to-twenty-minute stroll at 6:30, but now Victoria had turned into a spooky ghost-town, no one on the streets but the homeless trying to sleep against shop-fronts, and an occasional dark figure that seemed to be trailing me by half a block.  I made it back through the shadows to Demeter's in ten minutes.

I am telling you, I must be going.

Walloped

Nope. Still circling the painful subject of yesterday. Spent the bulk of the day buried in family history research, so am cheating with yet another Doctor Who fan-vid. This one is, once again, from the admirable BabelColour, and is cleverly based on the frenetic finale of the musical Half a Sixpence, one of those Sixties musicals I've never managed to see all the way through.


Half a Sixpence itself is based on, believe it or not, an HG Wells novel. The musical started out in the West End, starring a former skiffle star named Tommy Steele, who managed to pick up some startling dancing skills along the way. The show made it to Broadway and a film version was made in 1967. Here's the number as it appeared in the movie. It's longer to allow for the dancing (choreographed by Gillian Lynde who did the honours for Cats and scores of other musicals), and amusingly enough for the swinging Sixties, the original lyrics from the staged version have been cleaned up for the film.


Let's see how tomorrow goes. I may be feeling a bit less fragile by then.

What I'm watching this minute

Oh gawd.  Emma Thompson.  Bryn Terfel.  Stephen Sondheim.  I've been waiting for this for weeks….

Smooth and not-so-smooth moves

So we saw Jersey Boys this afternoon, the "Broadway Across Canada" production. We've bought season tickets, mainly because I want to see War Horse -- which means we have to suffer through Flash Dance as well, but I suspected this would delight younger daughter and I was right. She loved every moment.

I actually didn't know a great deal about The Four Seasons, but as the Resident Fan Boy put it, the Jersey Boys didn't let the story get in the way of the music, although their moves are quite a bit slicker than the originals. Here's an idea:

Just for fun, here are the actual Four Seasons lip-syncing while some television teens (from about 1964, judging from the Beatlemaniac-type screaming) do what passed for dancing at the time:
Bless 'em.

"Dying is easy; comedy is hard."

When I was fifteen, a friend invited me to go see the movie Godspell. On reflection, it was an odd film choice for two young Unitarians, but my Anglo-Saxon was rusty and I wasn't all that sure what I was getting into. I was swept away by the joy, hilarity, pathos, and infectious music. I was so exhilarated when I emerged from the cinema, that I walked all the way home, despite the darkness and lateness of the hour.

Over the years, I had the opportunity to view the stage production several times: an exuberant version by a clever company that normally specialized in improv; a polished version by one of those touring "Broadway" companies; an earnest professional version in Toronto that no doubt hoped to recapture the magic of the almost mythical Toronto production that featured Victor Garber, Gilda Radner, Eugene Levy, Andrea Thomas, Martin Short and Jayne Eastwood;
and the inevitable amateur church version that got by on heart and charm.

Both my daughters got hooked on it in turn. Elder daughter was especially enamoured of it at age five and had to be gently talked out of a Godspell-themed birthday party. (I wasn't quite sure how I would explain that one to the other parents, and what games would we play? "Let's electrocute Jesus in the back yard, kids!" We went with Snow White.) I still remember searching for something in the stacks in the downtown branch of the Greater Victoria Public Library when younger daughter was a toddler and hearing her singing wordlessly in her stroller. When I stopped to listen, I realized it was "Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord."

Younger daughter has remained steadfastly loyal to Godspell ever since, so when we learned that Canterbury High School was putting it on this month, we moved swiftly to procure tickets for the matinée.

Canterbury High School, for those of you unfamiliar with Hades, is the high school devoted to the arts in the public school system. Students come from across the Ottawa-Carlton School District to attend and must audition to gain admittance into Fine Arts, Drama, Dance, Literary Arts, or Music (or, I suppose, to a combination of the aforementioned). So this wasn't going to be your average zits-and-all high school performance.

And it wasn't. The set, meant to be an abandoned and drained outdoor swimming pool, covered with graffiti and brimming with trash, was student-designed and effective. The musicians, unseen backstage, played beautifully at the right volume and on cue. The performers sang well, knew their lines and were unfazed by slight mishaps such as the occasional feedback boom or a lost shoe during a dance number.

There were some odd directorial choices, forced, I suspect, by the need to involve as many students as possible. As is standard in many middle and high schools, there were two casts. We were seeing the "New Testament" cast whose final performance this was. About half a dozen dancers were brought in to add extra menace to the opening scene, the questioning by the Pharisees sequence, and the interlude where Jesus is tempted by Satan. This has been traditionally performed by the cast members only and I found it distracting. I imagine the parents of the dancers would passionately disagree.

The oddest choice of all was having the other so-called "Old Testament" cast appear at the foot of the stage, dressed quite elegantly in shades of black and grey with the women in heels, to bear away the body of Jesus. Nice bonding, but a bit bewildering to those not closely involved.

It took me some thinking afterward to pinpoint what wasn't quite working for me. Then it occurred to me: the funniness was missing. The other productions of Godspell I've seen have been hilarious; I've hurt myself giggling. This production had humour but it got hidden in asides that sounded more like teenage wisecracks than jokes.

Godspell is a musical, but for character actors. These kids are still too young to carry off the breathless vaudevillian pace of the script, and way too reluctant to surrender their prettiness to the clown characters they're supposed to embody. This robbed the more burlesque moments of the play of their innocence.

Let me give you an example: "Turn Back O Man" is a Diamond Lil/saloon-type number. In the touring Broadway production I saw years ago, the girl assigned to sing this was a plump and uninhibited performer dressed, like the rest of the cast, in an outrageous fluffy concoction with layers of knee-socks and a pair of battered old sneakers. She threaded an endless feather boa throughout the throng in the packed lower orchestra while treating individual audience members to Mae West one-liners. When she made her way back to the stage, she glanced up into the balcony and gave a little wave. I was in the balcony. Everybody waved back. It was so over-the-top, so literally a burlesque, that everyone felt comfortable and included in the joke. Her teen-aged counterpart in the Canterbury production was clad in a sort of striped body stocking with a little skirt and artfully torn leggings with bare feet. Instead of Mae West, we were leaning uncomfortably toward Lolita. Many of the female cast-members were dressed in variations of colourful tunics with leggings and bare feet or runners. They didn't look like clowns; they looked like something out of anime or manga.

"You've got to be pretty in the city of God"? Well, you've got to be a bit flaky in a production of Godspell

Still, the farewells at the Last Supper were genuinely moving and the Finale carried the full dramatic punch.

I may be giving the impression that the young actors were incompetent; let me assure you, they were not. They let them into this school for a reason. One girl, though, truly stood out. Her name is Natasha Mumba. This lady has the presence and the power and the chops. She can sing, she can take control of the stage and she has the makings of one fine character actor. Look out.

Younger daughter's reaction to Canterbury's Godspell? She sat there trembling slightly for a few moments after the lights came up, gazing down at her programme.
"I loved it!" she declared, finally. Spellbound.

All that jazz (part one)

Last week....stunk. I don't know if I'll ever get the courage to blog about it; besides, it will just end up being a long self-pitying rant about younger daughter's school. Suffice it to say, I couldn't bring myself to give the staff my usual end-of-year gifts, and I hustled younger daughter out the back to avoid goodbyes.

We bought tickets for the Broadway Across Canada tour of Chicago months ago, planning it for the night before elder daughter's last night in Hades before a brief trip to Scotland. This ended up being on the same day as younger daughter's leaving ceremony, but there's an irritating tale hanging here with which I won't burden you and it may have been a lucky escape anyway.

We've been to about four or five B.A.C. productions in the past year. The casts are Broadway-calibre, but not famous. Chicago is a favourite of elder daughter; jazz is a recent interest of younger daughter (she did a classroom speech on the subject the week before last); I like most things to do with Bob Fosse; and the Resident Fan Boy is usually pleased to have any outing surrounded by his women. However, this evening, there was an unanticipated treat for the RFB -- our Roxie Hart was none other than Bonnie Langford! "Not the Bonnie Langford?" I gasped flipping through the programme for confirmation. Yep. Bonnie Langford as in Mel, assistant to the Seventh and Eighth Doctors in Doctor Who.

Now, for some of you spring chickens who are only familiar with Renée Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones in the movie version, the original Chicago was choreographed and directed (and partially written) by Bob Fosse for his by-then-ex-wife Gwen Verdon who co-starred with Chita Rivera. Neither of the women were spring chickens themselves even in 1975: Verdon was fifty and Rivera in her late forties, though both were still dynamite dancers. So, it was kinda great to see a forty-five-year-old Bonnie Langford in the role of Roxie with Terra C. McLeod as Velma Kelly (she's described as a Montrealer, but I think was born in Oz), Brent Barrett as the slippery attorney Billy Flynn, and Ron Orbach as the pitiable Amos Hart. (Orbach is a cousin of the late Jerry Orbach who was the original Billy Flynn, trivia fans.) Incidentally, I wish you could hear younger daughter's rendition of "Mr. Cellophane". She learned it off the Muppet Show and does it really well, and rather convincingly...

The whole cast was fine, full of those triple-threat types - dancing actors who can also sing. The one distraction is that Bonnie Langford is tiny, and the rest of the cast towered over her. It was particularly interesting to see how they handled the grand Nowadays/Hot Honey Rag duet that comes almost at the close of the show. I don't know if Terra C. McLeod is particularly tall, but Langford barely came up to her shoulder, so the duet was carefully choreographed to minimize this. I think McLeod bent her knees more and the two were often placed not quite in line with each other. It was quite effective. This production is based on Ann Reinking's (another Fosse partner on-stage and off) revival, so the one remaining bit of pure Fosse choreography is the Hot Honey Rag. Now, anyone who has seen footage of Gwen Verdon and Chita Rivera performing it, and especially Karen Ziemba paired up with Bebe Neurith, knows that this choreography is a real litmus test for dancers. Bonnie Langford and Terra C. McLeod did fine, and even executed the cartwheels with panache, but if you want to see Fosse precision and have six minutes, please take a look at this:

We were razzle-dazzled anyway and set off into the warm Ottawa night to dream of mayhem, before younger daughter sat out her last day of elementary school in a humidex of 38. Hot honey rag indeed.

The tenth day of Christmas (slip-sliding away)

Gift certificates are a mixed blessing for someone who hates to shop. I mean, it really is looking a gift horse in the mouth, but I don't much care being sent out to shop for myself (and by extension, the Resident Fan Boy and younger daughter who aren't shoppers either) in the post-holiday crowds of shoppers.

So yesterday, we all set off for the forty-five-minute slog into downtown. Our challenge this time was steady snow and pavements slick with slush. Not quite two steps forward, one step back, but it felt like it. The gift certificates in question were the annual Chapters certificates from the girls' generous godparents. (Chapters, for non-Canadians, is probably the equivalent of Borders in the States, and I dunno, Waterstones in Britain?)

Elder daughter made a beeline for The Dark Knight, y'know, that other Christian Bale/Heath Ledger flick. Chapters seems to have done away with the family shelf in their DVD section, but we mosied over to "Musicals". Younger daughter gave a little gasp, and made the same reaching-for-then-pulling-her-hand-back gesture that she makes when trying to decide on a book or video at home.
"Do you see something you want?"
"I don't know."
"It looks like you see something interesting. Can you tell me what it is?"
"I don't know."
"Can you point at it?"
"I'm scared."
"Of the movie?"
"No."
"What are you afraid will happen?"
"You might say no."
"Well, it's your gift certificate, so you can choose whatever you want."
Another little gasp and aborted reach.
"I won't say no."
With an anticipatory smile, she pulls down South Pacific. Oh, damn, damn, damn. It's still under the tree, set aside as her Twelfth Day of Christmas present. I try to explain. She stomps off across the shop. I call after her. She says: "NO!" I can't blame her; it's my poor planning, and she's done that most difficult thing of making a choice, and I've said "no", just as she feared. We manage to talk her into getting The King and I
and I leave the Resident Fan Boy and elder daughter to do the certificate negotiation, and hastily get younger daughter to a nearby TexMex restaurant to restore us both.

After a hearty lunch, the RFB and elder daughter set off for the drug store, and younger daughter and I begin the 45-minute trudge-trudge-slip home. We cut up York Street past some funky little shops and pause to admire a Christmas bird sanctuary that one of them has set up: Then we make our way through the beat-up streets of Lowertown, stepping aside to let the sidewalk snow-movers (which look like orange earwigs) mow past us. I note that they are not laying down gravel, so we still slide further east, past the ice rink at the Catholic school where boys of different hues play pick-up hockey, some managing to skate through the snow covering the ice, some making do in their boots.

At home, I surreptitiously sneak South Pacific from the Twelfth Day of Christmas gift bag into the Tenth Day of Christmas gift bag.

That night, I invite younger daughter to watch Oliver! which was in the Eighth Day of Christmas gift bag. We get to the intermission before it's time for her bath and she comes to kiss me good night:
"Oliver is so strange!"
"Don't you like it?"
"Yes, but it's better than Elmwood School!" (We saw a cut-down production of the musical at the swish private school for girls a few weeks ago.)
"There's a lot of dancing, isn't there? And I think you like the costumes?"
"Yes, and Oliver was only a little girl!" she says, shaking her head in wonder, remembering the all-girl production.
"Well, in the movie, they could have a boy for Oliver, couldn't they?"

This morning, the Resident Fan Boy offers to take her tobogganing, and she enthusiastically accepts ("That's a great idea!") and delightedly plans to watch South Pacific afterwards: "I missed South Pacific so much!"

For myself, I'm accompanying elder daughter to her hated clarinet lesson downtown, and am planning to finally read younger daughter's assessment report which I'd set aside over Christmas. I need to ration out my heartbreaks like Christmas gifts.

Broadway Across Canada - Putnam County Spelling Bee

The Resident Fan Boy and I decided to splurge and purchase season tickets for the whole family this year for Broadway Across Canada (evidently the Canadian subsidiary of Broadway Across America). This has been the first year I've even been remotely interested in the offerings. I'm particularly looking forward to Spamalot in the fall, and Wicked may be just the ticket to ease the heartbreak of having to return to Ottawa after six weeks in Victoria this summer. The first show was The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, and in a way, this was the kicker. Younger daughter loves spelling bees. There was a spelling bee in the Peanuts movie A Boy Named Charlie Brown, and she astonished her godmother by insisting on coming along to Spellbound at the University of Victoria's Cinecenta when she was seven.

In preparation for the show, I ordered the original cast soundtrack, and played it during dinner. It sounded pretty pedestrian to me, so when we headed off yesterday in the rain to catch the bus, my expectations weren't high. We have a loge for the matinée showing, another splurge, but the privacy is easier on us and second daughter who then has a totally unobstructed view of the stage. We were uneasy when the National Arts Centre ushers tried to encourage us to take seats in the orchestra section, saying there were "sound problems". The Resident Fan Boy and elder daughter were all for heading down, but I said, dammit, we have loge seating, far forward --- how bad could the sound be?

The answer turned out to be: not a problem at all. We could see from our vantage point that the Southam Hall theatre was disappointingly sparse, presumably because this show hasn't had quite the same buzz as the really big Broadway productions. But you know, what the soundtrack CD didn't convey was how very funny this show is. Part of the hilarity comes from the inclusion of four ringers amongst the spellers. I'm not sure if they were chosen from the audience beforehand, but they didn't appear to be actors, although all of them were reasonably attractive, seemed quite comfortable on the stage, and took the jokes at their expense ("She won her local bee by spelling her own name.") without a boggle.

The actors themselves were your usual frightingly talented musical performers, able to sing, dance, act, and improvise. And we heard everything quite clearly. I saw elder daughter laughing easily throughout and younger daughter held up her two favourite puppets so they could see, and told me afterwards, "My favourite bit was the stars." Not quite sure what she meant by that. I'll have to ask her.