Made of flecks of light and dark

Imagine one person writing musicals and never really repeating ideas.  A musical based on a Bergman film, and another on a penny-dreadful legend, then a painter on the edge of the Impressionists' circle, plus a music box of presidential assassins, and a blending of fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm and Perrault with all the gory parts intact - and that would be less than half of the output of this one person. All shows which can be watched repeatedly, because they are so dense with ideas, that each renewed viewing would reveal something else missed.

I was introduced to the music of Stephen Sondheim in a gentle and, at the time, comprehensive way, via an award-winning show featuring his songs up until the mid-1970s entitled Side by Side by Sondheim.  It featured a dazzling catalogue of his work in partnership with New York giants such as Leonard Bernstein and Sammy Cohn, and songs written on his own, mostly for musicals, with the occasional cabaret number or something heard faintly in a movie soundtrack.  All relentlessly clever: complicated rhyme schemes, mordant, wicked wit, and heartbreak.

And this was before he produced several more decades of thought-provoking theatre, with songs that are fiendishly difficult to sing without being difficult to hear.

It was a week ago Friday when I heard the news about his death, and like others, I was suspended in disbelief, even though the man was 91.  It was about 3 in the afternoon, and I waited for confirmation from other news sites -- even though the first word came from the New York Times.

A tune played relentlessly in my head, and the next day, it became evident that I was not alone.  In Times Square, with huge screens flashing advertisements behind them, a hastily assembled choir made up of members of current Broadway shows sang the song.  In Central Park, another massed choir gathered by the Bethesda Angel and sang the song.

The video version  I'm choosing is from a BBC Proms concert from 2010, celebrating Sondheim's 80th year.  The song is "Sunday" from my favourite Sondheim musical Sunday in the Park with George.  It got sung a lot in 2010, and will probably be sung repeatedly in the coming year. 

 And I will hear something different, every time.

He's got a funny feeling that he's won

As depressing as the news is, whether here in Canada, or over the border, or overseas, a bit of clever political satire can brighten things up. This is why I rather adore Randy Rainbow and his pink cat-eyed glasses. This week, he's gone after the impeachment hearings in the States, using one of my favourite songs from Rodger and Hammerstein's Oklahoma.

For you infants - or philistines - who don't know your musical theatre, here's an excerpt from Trevor Nunn's 1999 London production - which starred a relatively unknown Hugh Jackman as Curly - here featuring Vicki Simon as "Ado Annie", whose English accent occasionally slips through. She's singing to Josefina Gabrielle as a barefooted and over-alled Laurey.


I notice that later productions change the last verse, which originally ran:
I'm jist a girl who cain't say no,
Kissin's my favourite food.
With or without the mistletoe,
I'm in a holiday mood.
Other girls are coy and hard to catch,
But other girls ain't havin' any fun.
Every time I lose a wrestling match,
I have a funny feeling that I won.
Although I can feel the undertow,
I never make a complaint,
'Til it's too late for restraint,
Then when I wanna, I cain't,
I cain't say no.

Hosts in the bathroom

We watched the Tonys last night, and they actually made some sense this time, perhaps finally recovering from the in-jokey weirdness of the 2017 Emmys, hosted by Ken Spacey, before his plummet from grace.

This broadcast actually featured shows that I wouldn't mind seeing - assuming I had scads more cash than I do - including the award-winner for new Musical - Hadestown. (Gee, I'd have to see the appeal in that one, wouldn't I?)

One of the more amusing moments was a special musical number parodying a musical that didn't feature in the Tony nominations at all, but might turn up in next year's, as it's new on Broadway. I don't remember much about last year's awards at all; I'd even forgotten that Sara Bareilles and Josh Groban had hosted.

I can't embed the clip; I suspect there were copyright issues, as James Corden had it up on his YouTube station this morning, and it has been taken down. However, CBS posted it on their Facebook page, and I believe you can still see it here.

And here's the original, from the musical Be More Chill. It's kind of a complicated plot, but you'll get the idea that it's about the usual teenage problems.

Gucci on a Ritz

There have been a lot of retrospectives of The Carol Burnett Show in recent years. None of them ever include this splendid (and affectionate) spoof of the Fred Astaire/Ginger Roger musicals of the 1930s.

The songwriter Irving Berlin had a strict proviso against any parodies of his songs, so the songs here only hint at the Berlin originals - with the exception of the singing gondolier who warbles a garbled version of "Putting on the Ritz", which includes a reference to "Fred Austerlitz" (Fred Astaire's real name).

Other delights include Ken Berry's dancing (not what he was famous for in the television of the 60's and 70's), and Roddy McDowall's rather good impression of Edward Everett Horton.

Appalled when it comes to a Baldwin

I think Randy Rainbow's videos are clever, hilarious, and loaded with high production value. They can also sting, and not just his targets. This one makes me laugh and wince.



Maybe I need to sing "Cockeyed Optimist" to myself at bedtime?

Musical chairs

I have to admit that Kiwanis season is not among my favourites -- particularly the Musical Theatre section.

However, younger daughter loves singing in the Kiwanis festival and she has always loved musical theatre. One of my earliest memories of her singing was when she was about eighteen months old. I was searching for something up in the stacks at the Greater Victoria Public Library when I heard her vocalizing tunefully. The tune turned out to be "Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord" from Godspell.

So, a couple of weeks ago found us on the long bus-ride out to a part of Nepean near where her school used to be. I was tense, dreading the competition, dreading having to sit through yet another production of The Sound of Music the next day -- in short, not tapping into my higher self, because both are things that younger daughter adores, in a world where her autism bars her from quite a few pleasures.

I got a grip on myself and used the long journey to focus on the best outcome. I've been back to creative visualization -- call it magical thinking if you will, but I got a bit more centred by the time we got out for the fifteen-minute walk through the suburbs to the church where this shindig is held every year.

I suppose it was a good thing I felt centred, because things almost immediately began to go sideways after our arrival. Younger daughter vanished into the washroom with ten minutes to go before her section was scheduled to start. She was the first of the competitors.

Time ticked by and when I popped my head in to remind her of this, she hollered at me to get out. I only had time to register that she was applying eye make-up. Her accompanist was enlisted to approach her -- younger daughter rarely hollers at non-family-members -- and our singer emerged with thick eye-lashes drawn in around her eyes. She reminded me of Victor Garber in the aforementioned Godspell.

"This is so I will look like a little girl for the second song," she told the Resident Fan Boy.

This is her fourth time participating in the Musical Theatre section. Up until now, she has been the only competitor to not bother with a costume change -- the other girls often do quite elaborate changes with plenty of props. This year, she and her teacher worked out a very simple change. She would be in stocking feet and wearing a sweater over her dress, presumably to look more like an auditioning chorus line dancer.

I've never been a fan of A Chorus Line, but "Nothing" is one of the better songs. It is also very wordy and quick.

Younger daughter plunged into it with admirable energy -- expressing bewilderment, anger, and the final resignation and shock quite eloquently, I thought. (I am her mother.) At Kiwanis, the adjudicators sit halfway back from the stage and all spectators are expected to sit behind them, so her make-up didn't look garish at all. I wept a bit with pride and started to relax a little.

Too soon.

Younger daughter vanished into the little change-room offstage and reappeared almost immediately, still sweatered and stocking-footed. She caught herself, disappeared, and came back with her flats on. It took her a second or two to realize that she still had to remove the sweater, so she returned to the side-room and we could hear her grunting and struggling, talking to herself. When she entered, she remembered she was supposed to change her hairband.

This all seemed to take forever, as I sweated with embarrassment, but it probably didn't take much longer than two minutes, which is a good thing, as both songs must be delivered within twelve minutes.

Younger daughter's second song was "My Party Dress" from a not-terribly-well-known musical called Henry and Mudge. It's another challenging number, with more than a hint of ADD -- the song, that is, younger daughter, as you may know from previous posts, is on the autism spectrum with a recently-diagnosed anxiety disorder -- which actually makes this a rather good fit.

Once again, she performed it flawlessly and remembered to acknowledge her excellent accompanist.

There were only two other performers in this age category. Both had the same accompanist, who sauntered up to the piano in his own time.

The first girl performed two songs from musicals I've heard of, but haven't attended. She was good, had stage presence and a strong voice.

The second girl did a charming number from The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and the famous "Adelaide's Lament" from Guys and Dolls. She did the first well, and the second competently.

Phew, I thought. We'll be home soon.

Except that the star adjudicator, the one with the lengthy CV that included the Stratford Festival, decided, as there were only three competitors, to hold a mini-workshop.

She asked younger daughter who the Chorus Line character is singing to.

Stammering and playing for time, younger daughter did what she always does when put on the spot - she tried to give the right answer. She started telling the adjudicator who Diana Morales is: "Her name's Diana, but the teacher calls her 'Morales'..."

Well, it turns out the adjudicator had an issue with all three singers, in their choice of audience, in their use of props -- very bewildering for three young women who had been coached to use props. For example, she didn't like younger daughter's using a chair because there's no chair on a stage during an audition.

Then she had all three girls sing, asking if younger daughter's accompanist were still there. (Of course she wasn't - accompanists can't hang around; they're rushing off to accompany someone else, usually in a different part of the city.) The accompanist for the other two young women said he could do it, and the adjudicator confused younger daughter further by requesting that she start with the opening monologue. There hadn't been one. The accompanist obligingly struck up in a different key than the one rehearsed, but he was playing from memory. Younger daughter managed -- and this is damned important -- she kept eye contact, as requested, with the adjudicator.

I thought of a day early last September when it took eight tries to get an ID photo because younger daughter was unable to look straight ahead, and I blessed her anxiety medication.

Afterward, we quickly repaired to the washroom to attempt to remove all that eye make-up. She hadn't brought make-up removal sheets, so I dampened toilet paper with water and tiny amounts of hand-soap.

I'm pretty sure that one of the other girls was weeping in the centre cubicle.

When we finally got home, we discovered that the written adjudication was surprisingly constructive. And the dreaded Sound of Music? Quite enjoyable, really.

But get the ice, or else no dice

Yesterday, I asked younger daughter if she'd like to see a late matinée screening at the Bytowne Cinema of the 1953 movie version of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Rather to my surprise, she readily agreed. It turns out that she loves "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend". I bet you do, too.
G'wan, watch it, you know you want to:

Younger daughter was thrilled when I pointed out a young George Chakiris amongst the dancing millionaires. She's a huge fan of West Side Story, in which Marni Nixon provided the singing for Natalie Wood's Maria. Marni Nixon also hits the high notes for Marilyn Monroe in this movie, and provides the operatic "No's" at the beginning of the song.

The 1953 film is based on the 1949 Broadway musical which was based on the 1925 book by Anita Loos which was created out of a series of stories that Anita Loos wrote for the magazine Harper's Bazaar, based on her observation of her friend HL Mencken's helplessness at the hands of a blond bombshell. The Broadway musical was set in the 1920s; the 1953 movie wasn't, and the plots of neither had much to do with the book nor each other.

The Broadway musical starred a young Carol Channing. I can't imagine anyone less like Carol Channing than Marilyn Munroe, but the show and movie also had little in common, and "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" is closely associated with both Channing and Monroe. Here's Carol Channing singing it on a 1957 television show (I don't know which one):


It's really younger daughter who led me to the discovery that watching movies in a movie theatre is worthwhile, even when the movie is readily available on TV, DVD, or online. You won't be getting up to do things around the house, nor multitasking. Your concentration is on the movie; this is the first time I've actually watched GPB straight through. You hear the reaction of the audience around you. You can eat popcorn, and in the Bytowne, you're watching the film in the sort of movie theatre in which it would have been shown in 1953.

Mind you, the experience is digital and the mindset you bring into the theatre belongs to the twenty-first century.

What, for example, does a denizen of the twenty-first century make of the following number?


This is supposedly the American Olympic Team - would they really make their way to the 1952 Oslo games via Paris? Jane Russell's character is crest-fallen because the team has a strict curfew and is thus unavailable for amorous activities. Am I the only one who suspects the curfew is not the chief barrier for a woman making out with these fellas? Oh well, they may have thought otherwise in 1953; it was another time.

After the movie, the Resident Fan Boy and I discussed how sexual politics have changed (or not), and remembered Madonna's famous video for "Material Girl", which has a different message from the famous song and film that it references. Or does it?

Ain't nuthin' for a girl

Some months ago, a Facebook friend posted this video on her "wall":



Nifty, huh?  I showed it to younger daughter, who recognized the song immediately.  Some weekend last spring, when I was too sick/busy/adverse to going along, the Resident Fan Boy and she had gone to see a movie called Pitch Perfect which featured this little, but pivotal scene:



which, in turn, became a hit:



which I missed because it's not the type of song that would be played on the type of radio I listen to.

I did, however, recognize the singer, whom I'd encountered in the movie Up In the Air:



which I thought should have won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2009.

It took several more weeks for me to realize that I had seen Anna Kendrick even earlier -- in fact she's featured in a DVD that I own called My Favorite Broadway: The Leading Ladies.  Taped in 1998, when Anna Kendrick was 13 (and looking much younger, much as she does today), this was and is one of my favourite moments from the concert. Anna, appearing at the time in a Broadway musical version of High Society, joins the Kit Kat Club girls from the 1998 Broadway revival of Cabaret in a rather surreal version of "Life Upon the Wicked Stage" from Showboat.


She was terrifyingly talented even then.

As a matter of fact, I do know it's Christmas...

Racing down to the wire now. It is, as elder daughter points out, Christmas Eve's Eve. I've written my "aunt" letters for our surviving elderly aunts who are also non-computerized and thus need updating the old-fashioned way.

Of course, I keep running into pleasant distractions. Here's a gem. Theatre companies of (mostly) musicals in London, New York, Sweden, and Germany tear the lid off the old Bandaid classic "Do They Know It's Christmas?" for Water Aid.

Among the famous faces is none other than David Tennant, clad in a tacky Christmas sweater coveted by elder daughter (where oh where did you get it, DT?), and backed by the trio that sings the beautiful music in the Royal Shakespeare Company's current production of Richard II (hence Mr Tennant's prodigious plait).

Now I must knuckle down to the remaining Christmas cards. They'll be late, but after all, there are twelve days of Christmas….

We sing once more

When elder daughter was about nine or ten, I took her to a Singalong Sound of Music at the Bytowne Cinema. (I was careful to take her to a matinée -- the gay community brought a party atmosphere to the evening shows which wasn't necessarily kid-stuff.) It was quite an afternoon. There was a costume parade and contest and everyone received little kits which contained props such as a kind of confetti-cracker to shoot off during the first kiss between Maria and the Captain. (Rather orgasmic!) We were also instructed to gesture and call out for certain characters, kind of like a drinking game: barking whenever Rolf appeared, hissing the Baroness, etc.

Yet, with all the satirical fun-making, I was astonished as gradually, the gestures and sound effects were forgotten as the audience got involved in the story. It's a hokey and sentimental story, and as younger daughter has been discovering this term in a history project based on the movie, a tale that has remarkably little to do with what happened to the real Von Trapp family.

Younger daughter was given the assignment largely because her teacher knew we planned to take her to another Singalong Sound of Music -- this one with a live cast at the National Arts Centre. It was a little confusing at first. I thought there might be surtitles as at some operas, but we were evidently expected to sing along from memory -- and only at certain points, supposedly signaled by bringing up the lights on the audience, but it was a subtle difference, particularly for us. We were seated in the back row of a little island of seats directly in front of the stage.

However, this production was based more on the original 1959 Broadway production rather than the 1965 movie, although "I Have Confidence" and "Something Good", originally written for the movie, were inserted and "No Way to Stop It" and "An Ordinary Couple" from the original stage musical were omitted. We also had a very good and cohesive cast, most of them seen in the delightful Tartuffe set in Newfoundland last autumn. (I believe they're planning on keeping the company for the 2013-2014 season, which I think is an idea brought in by the latest artistic director.) In addition, there were a couple of familiar faces: Pierre Brault, a busy Ottawa-based actor who has produced successful one-man shows, including Blood on the Moon, and Katie Ryerson, whom we've seen four times in different Company of Fools productions.

Much of the saccharine of the movie was eliminated by a liberal helpings of sly humour, and the use of adult actors to play all but the two youngest of the Von Trapp children. The company doubled, tripled, and even quadrupled up on roles and the audience chortled in delight when we realized that the nuns chorusing "How do you solve a problem like Maria?" included at least three men!

The cast was universally strong (most having impressive CVs - I was particularly taken with the performance of Christine Brubaker who played Sister Bertha, Frau Schmidt and a glamourous and totally in control Baroness - and Maria was played by Eliza Jane Scott with all the passion, impulsiveness, and energy that the part requires, which Carrie Underwood, playing in a recent live broadcast of the musical on American television, didn't quite convey.

And once again, I found myself being moved by the dramatic (albeit improbable) climax of the story, feeling oddly choked up as the Captain (Dimitri Chepovetsky) implored us to join in "Edelweiss" while a Nazi in a long leather coat sat stonily right next to me. I knew damn well he was actor Eric Davis, but I felt utterly unnerved.

Need I say that younger daughter was completely enchanted?

Beating the thunder and lightening

Thunderstorm tonight. The lights blink, and I have to get something up should they fail entirely.

One of my other favourites sung at the Hollywood musicals pops concert at the NAC last Friday was "The Atcheson, Topeka and the Santa Fe". The vocals and orchestrations were a recreation of the number from The Hervy Girls led by Judy Garland, (with Ray Bolger giving her an arm, and inexplicably in black and white -- the film was in colour).

However, in my mind, I heard Bing Crosby. My mother had an ancient record of this. Demeter was always a fan of "dark brown voices".

While searching for accompanying videos, I came across this gem: It's a Christmas broadcast featuring both Judy Garland and Bing Crosby, Johnny Mercer who wrote the song. And Bob Hope, of course.

Whoops! Another flash. Gotta go.

Dancing in the dark

On the longest day of the year, the sun was moving to the north-west in Hades, and Beechwood Avenue had a carnival atmosphere due to the Solstice Stroll. The Resident Fan Boy, younger daughter and I made our way to the bus stop amid arts and crafts displays, musicians, and wandering families. Several residents of the seniors home had their walkers and wheelchairs set up at the entrance, soaking up the atmosphere. We boarded our bus and watched the proprietor of The SconeWitch emerge from her shop with a small pyramid of scones. I was rather sorry not to have the time to explore, but we had rush tickets for the National Arts Centre.

The downtown streets were teeming with people out for the first Friday evening of summer: shoppers clutching bags, line-ups for the crowded patios, and young girls decked out in tunics with leggings, shorts and layered tank-tops, the little black dress that still denotes someone on her way for some clubbing. As we crossed Elgin, we could hear music floating from Confederation Park as the annual JazzFest got rolling.

We elected to end our longest day with Hollywood film music, complete with a chorus (actually two combined choral societies), a full orchestra, and five not-quite-famous Broadway performers. It says something about Broadway that people you never heard of still have impressive CVs and a frightening amount of talent. All these singers and musicians were performing movie scores painstakingly recreated by Principal Pops Conductor Jack Everly (who has a pretty stunning CV himself) and others, by watching and listening to these classic films repeatedly to work out the original instrumentation. This was necessary because MGM destroyed the original scores in the 1970s as an economic measure.

The show could have been especially designed for younger daughter. It featured all her very favourites: The Wizard of Oz (overture, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", and the chorus doing an impressive impression of Munchkins and citizens of Oz); Meet Me in St Louis (overture, a snippet from "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" and the whole of the "The Trolley Song"); and Easter Parade. She glowed with pleasure throughout the concert. The Resident Fan Boy, who had had an exhausting and hot day, didn't fall asleep once.

There were a lot of my favourites too, but I realized, as the music washed over me with comforting familiarity, that the memories that came floating back were't necessarily of the movies, although I had seen the original films several times. Take "Singing in the Rain" and "Stormy Weather", for example. Sure, I can see Gene Kelly or Lena Horne in my mind's eye, if I want to, but I'm more likely to remember rainy evenings at the University of Victoria, splashing from the library to the Student Union Building for a dinner break with a friend, whirling Gene-like with our umbrellas, leaping up on lamp-posts (and damn near crippling ourselves), or warbling like Lena.

The orchestra also played "Dancing in the Dark" from The Band Wagon. Did I imagine Cyd Charisse and Fred Astaire? I could have. Instead I remembered May 20th, 1989, the day Gilda Radner died. (If you follow the link, you're probably going to have to turn on the video, then put it on pause and allow several minutes for it to load -- it will be worth it.) It was a Saturday and the last live show of the season for Saturday Night Live where Gilda had been a star during the late seventies. It so happened that Steve Martin was guest-hosting, so the opening monologue was scrapped to show a classic clip from a 1978 show. Behind the 1989 Steve, you might be able to spot G.E.Smith who had been the lead guitarist for Hall and Oates and was then the music director for SNL. He had also been Gilda's first husband. What this clip doesn't show is his gentle lyrical guitar solo that took the show to the first commercial break, but if you can spot him, you'll see he's wearing a black arm-band. (Gilda was married to actor Gene Wilder when she died.)

Back in 2013, we applauded enthusiastically and grabbed a cab home, whisked through Byward Market and the jay-walking strollers on their way to dance in the brief dark of the shortest night of the year.

If you go down to the woods today

We like to support local theatre when we can. This was a musical at the Gladstone Theatre, featuring Zac Counsil, whom we had seen in a clever three-person adaptation of Macbeth last year, and the amazing Kris Joseph, who was one of the very best actors in Ottawa before he moved west to Edmonton. I knew next to nothing about this play -- it's a cult musical from the 1990s -- but we were warned: "Stage fog; prop guns; intercourse bears". Intercourse bears?

Well, the first half was quite entertaining. Even before the lights went down, the fog machine spewed interesting white billows across the black stage. Like real clouds, they floated into interesting shapes; one looked for all the world like the jaws of a smoky crocodile reaching out to snap the audience. When the show began, the acting was fine, and the singing strong. Kris Joseph, as expected, took over every scene he was in as the troubled doctor who saves the Bat Boy because he hopes this will save his marriage. (Things get nasty when it doesn't.) I was rather disappointed by the lack-lustre response of the audience; the cast was working so hard.

It all fell apart a bit after intermission. A young boy across the aisle who appeared to be about four, seemed to lose interest during the first musical number and started snapping pictures with his iPhone (or whatever it was -- he had been playing games on it during the intermission when the Resident Fan Boy heard him tell the couple behind him that his mum was in the cast). He snapped away steadily for about ten minutes until the man behind him firmly grasped his shoulders.

They lost me for good when the cute furry animals start copulating while singing about inter-species harmony. I saw the bears but didn't see them having intercourse. I was too busy trying not to watch a tiny bunny do unspeakable things to Grover the Monster. It's supposed to be funny and satirical; I thought it was gratuitous and over-the-top. This play is being marketed as "heart-warming".

After the big denouement, which involved a women being sexually assaulted by bats and a bit of inadvertent incest, I turned to the Resident Fan Boy and joked weakly: "My review for this would be: 'If you liked Avenue Q, you'll probably like this."

Back home, on Skype, we tried to explain to elder daughter in Halifax about the puppets having sex. Younger daughter gasped from the dinner table: "The puppets were having sex????"

Somehow, I don't think she's picking up much from the life discussions at her school.

Real cool

It was beginning to seem like a dangerous way to skip the first Hockey Night in Canada in many months. The Resident Fan Boy, younger daughter and I penguin-walked and skidded down the icy sidewalks between walls of snow. Fifteen centimetres of snow in one morning had given away to rain by evening, freezing into silver chutes. However, we had purchased rush tickets earlier in the day for a screening of West Side Story, with the instrumental soundtrack provided live by the National Arts Centre Orchestra and for the sake of younger daughter, who adores this musical, we were going - come Hades or high water (or frozen sidewalk).

Our rush seats, a wonderful bargain courtesy of younger daughter's student status, were in the mezzanine this time, almost dead centre. We had a beautiful view of most of the NACO, although the horn section was obscured by the movie screen because of our height above the stage. The conductor, who normally opens with a humourous banter, took the stage, bowed and immediately sat in front of what appeared to be a screen the size of a large laptop. We've been to Pops concerts where the musicians played live soundtracks before -- an evening of selections from films based on Rogers and Hammerstein musicals and a showing of Bugs Bunny cartoons years ago. I'd never seen how the conductor synchronized the live musicians with the soundtrack either of those times and now rather wished I'd brought my binoculars.

As the MGM lion roared and the three eerie whistles signalled the beginning of the film, I was astonished to feel my chest constrict with excitement. I mean, I've seen this movie dozens, if not scores of times. However, I don't think I've ever seen it on a big screen in a packed auditorium -- and Southam Hall in the NAC complex is a large venue. Three large green vertical columns moved from left to right across the monitor in front of the conductor who raised his baton and brought the musicians in.

The images and music were almost as familiar as the back of my hand, but I found myself concentrating in a way I'd never done before, marvelling at the beauty of the dancing, even in the fight scenes, noticing tiny things for the first time: how Riff controls his gang with a wordless jerk of the head; the playground where Tony begins singing "Maria" is the place where he will die at the end; the foreshadowing hint of "There's a Place For Us" at the end of the rapturous lovers' duet "Tonight".

Something else I'd never noted properly - the fabulous dancing of the Jets' girlfriends, both at the fateful gymnasium dance where Tony and Maria first meet and later in the edge-of-hysteria dance number "Cool" where the remaining Jets try to come to grips with the deaths of the rival gang-leaders Riff and Bernardo.
Watch those girls dance! They're doing most of the same moves the male dancers are, and they're doing it in skirts and heels. ('Twas ever thus.) Most of the dancers you see here were in the original Broadway production, although not necessarily in the same roles. The blonde girl is Carole Andreas, the original "Velma" on Broadway and also the wife (now ex) of Robert Morse who created the role a J. Pierpont Finch in How to Succeed in Business Without Even Trying.

More than fifty years later, some of the lingo is dated, but the dancing isn't. I was a bit taken aback when at intermission, an acquaintance of the RFB told me that she wasn't prepared for how skinny the dancers were. She meant she didn't think they looked substantial enough to be in a street gang, perhaps being more used to the six-packed footballish image of the present-day tough guy. We had just watched this men scramble over fences, hurdle horizontal bars, dance with girl on one shoulder. I told this woman that I wouldn't want to pick a fight with a Shark or a Jet: "They could dance circles around me."

For a great deal of the film, I simply forgot to watch the musicians as they played along, which is probably a testament to how good they were. The NACO, after all, is a world-class orchestra. I watched as younger daughter sat forward in her seat for the entire three hours, rapt. The Resident Fan Boy and I felt the same. It was almost like seeing the film for the first time.

One more thing: I never felt this way for one second during my first and only viewing of Les Miserables. West Side Story has heart-break and passion, but it's also got dancing and humour, all conveyed through the varied (let's emphasize this - varied), intricate music of Leonard Bernstein, the clever lyrics of Stephen Sondheim, and the fluid choreography of Jerome Robbins, to say nothing of the performances by the cast.

West Side Story dances circles around Les Miz. Simple as that. It was worth the skid.

Dealing with the dark and light on Elgin

I guess I'm not a resilient as I used to be. All week I've been struggling against what seems like a sort of emotional flu. It's only today that I've feel somewhere within striking distance of my normal energy level which, let's face it, never was that high.

Today was overcast, and the day turned out to be flashes of colour against the grey. We had business along Elgin Street which is my favourite downtown street in Hades. We stopped in at Leading Note because younger daughter will be tackling sight reading this year. (Gulp.) We had brunch at the Elgin Street Diner where I had a waffle totally obscured with brilliant slices of strawberry, kiwi, pineapple and banana. We stopped by Boushey's Fruit Market which always has a surprise. Today, the surprise was chocolate and raspberry liqueur spread. We didn't buy any, but it's nice to know it's there. Then we made our way down to the Byward Market, past Oktoberfesters in Bavarian type garb (does this give the Jewish community nasty flashbacks, I wonder?) and picked out a trio of pumpkins so bright, they might not even need candles come Hallowe'en night. Younger daughter carried hers home with great reverence and pride.

By late afternoon, my spirits were flagging. In the tradition of other NaBloPoMos in which I've taken part, I've been reading through past Octobers in my journals, which is a double-edged sword. Even as I encounter happy memories I'd long forgotten, I keep being haunted by the line in "Stockton Gala Days", one of the songs I'd saved to my iPod this past week:
"What I've learned to hide
What I've lost inside
You'd be surprised if shown
But you'll never, you'll never know..."

(Also, we learned today that younger daughter's voice teacher has bought a two bedroom, one-and-a-half bathroom condo, not far from Elgin Street. The maintenance fees, just the maintenance fees, mind, are twice what the Resident Fan Boy and I paid as rent on a two bed/one-and-a-half bath condo when we were first married.)

One of our stops this morning on Elgin Street was at the National Arts Centre for rush seats to tonight's Pop Concert, shamelessly using younger daughter's student discount, so this evening we headed out under a sky which had cleared to reveal faint stars straining to twinkle over the street lamps and headlights. The rather drab Indian High Commission on the corner of our street was festooned with coloured lights; it must be Diwali this weekend.

The conductor led the NAC orchestra with large fluid movements and an earpiece; the orchestra had to keep up with the soundtracks of selections from seven films of Rogers and Hammerstein musicals. The orchestral bits had been deftly removed, so the these living musicians could play along. ("It's sort of karaoke in reverse," commented the Resident Fan Boy at intermission.) Occasionally, they got a little behind -- "There is Nothing Like a Dame" seemed a particular challenge. However, for the most part, they got to rather seamlessly accompany the likes of Shirley Jones, Joel McCrae, Mitzi Gaynor, Julie Andrews, Pat Boone, Bobby Darin... (Okay, the last two were a bit of shock; they were in the second film version of State Fair.) And in the dark, I could see younger daughter's face glowing with delight and pleasure.

I keep having to remind myself that you need the dark to understand what light is.

A solid girl like me

We're running into a week of hot days for Victoria. "Hot" in Victoria means high twenties (Celsius) which means upper to mid-thirties here in Saanich. I struggled to somehow get the large front yard and simply enormous backyard adequately watered, as we'll be out tomorrow evening watching The Taming of the Shrew on the Camosun College campus (where we'll probably be cold). Inside, younger daughter was delighting to the 1965 television version of Rogers and Hammerstein's Cinderella which features one of the best songs ever written about falling in love ("Ten Minutes Ago"); one of the truest songs about longing ("Do I Love You Because You're Beautiful") and one of the most painfully funny songs about how men unoriginally keep falling for the pretty girls ("Stepsisters' Lament"). With all that damn watering, I barely have enough time to post something before midnight PDT, so I'm posting the 1957 version of the last song with Alice Ghostly and Kaye Ballard:

Necessities

My heart sank a little when younger daughter chose "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" as her performance piece for a recent church dinner.

Oh, "Over the Rainbow" is a nifty song. I'll give you that. You can understand why it's a classic. Beautifully constructed, full of unfulfilled longing, of dreams just out of reach -- no wonder it strikes a universal chord. Furthermore, it's the gem glowing at the beginning of the best-loved children's film ever, so there's the added pull of ancient childhood memory.

I was just hoping younger daughter would pick something a little less conventional. (She does a fabulous "Mr Cellophane" from Chicago.) I was wishing this even more during the week before the dinner as the Resident Fan Boy led her through rehearsals with our karaoke machine. (Not to be too cynical, but I suspect the desired use of the karaoke machine for the party was a key reason behind the invitation for younger daughter to sing.) Every evening, she would run through it about four times which wouldn't have been so bad, but the karaoke CD we have is from the show version (as opposed to the movie version) which includes a cutesy spoken lead-in and an introductory verse which I believe Garland herself only sang once in a radio show during the Second World War.

Here's a 1960 recording of Ella Fitzgerald singing the song with the opening verse (but not, thank heaven, with the cutesy spoken part): I rather wish I'd known about this recording before; younger daughter adores Ella Fitzgerald. Anyway, she practised gamely and had the new words down pat, as we set off for the bus stop on a Sunday evening, elder daughter and I bickering over the latest Doctor Who episode. (Elder daughter thinks I'm prejudiced against Chris Chibnall and would have liked "The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood" if I hadn't known that Chibnall wrote it; I don't think so. I'd say the double episode was pretty crappy even if Chibnall hadn't written "Countrycide". But, as usual, I digress.)

Younger daughter sang well. Afterward, we asked her if she was ready to go home, but to our surprise, she wanted to stay. Mystified, I watched her body language get increasingly agitated as a small parade of brave souls tackled the limited karaoke repertoire. (The organizers failed to pick up discs from the local rental and the would-be warblers were left with the half-dozen discs we happen to have.) One brave little girl tackled "Doh, a Deer" and struggled with the unfamiliar accompaniment. Another woman decided to assay "When You're a Jet" from Leonard Bernstein's fiendishly difficult West Side Story and coped by adopting the Rex-Harrison-talk/sing approach.

Younger daughter continued to fidget fretfully.
"Would you like to do one?" we asked.
"No!" she snapped.

Elder daughter grabbed a friend and cheerfully bumbled their way through "What is This Feeling?" from Wicked (which goes like this if you're not a young woman and thus are not familiar with the song):
Younger daughter continued to grimace and behave rather like she needed to visit the washroom. Finally, she blurted out: "Aren't they going to do a Disney one?"

I hurried over to the table and made the suggestion. Elder daughter grabbed some assistants and launched into "Hakuna Matata" from The Lion King. This seemed to give younger daughter the courage she needed. She announced that she wanted to sing "The Bare Necessities" from The Jungle Book, seized the microphone, and with perfect pitch, volume, and timing, belted it out. She even danced a little.

Returning to our table in the wake of a rather astonished ovation, she informed us it was time to go home. Clearly, she'd made her point.