piss and vinegar

I woke up this morning with a strong desire to write. Not my own pet project but this blog post, which is a review of a musical I saw last night for the first and hopefully not the last time.

The musical is called Impresario and I need to own the cast recording that doesn't exist of it yet. It's the true story of a young man from Newfoundland, John Murray Anderson, who dreamed of being a showman when he was running around St. John's without his rubber boots on, even though his mom said not to, and how he made those dreams come true on Broadway, and in Hollywood, back in the first half of the 20th century. You've never heard of him but he knew people like Bette Davis and Lucille Ball. He was kind of a big deal.

I'm not a very good reviewer so what I should say next is unclear to me. One thing I could say is that I judge most music based on whether I want to sing it or not.

I want to sing almost everything I heard last night and I'm not sure if I remember enough of the tunes yet, hence the need for a cast album. I had a similar experience last month after I left the Broadway performance of a new musical called Groundhog Day which has been nominated for a Tony for best musical.

I could add that last night I jumped to my feet and started the standing ovation in my section rather than rising to my feet only after the other people got up and blocked my view.

I am not the only reviewer of Impresario who thought that way.  The Telegram thought so too and, like Mikey, they don't like anything at least when it comes to musicals. The reviewer practically says that out right.

This may be all you really need to know but I can't ever leave well enough alone so here's the long version of what I just said.

Full disclosure, my niece, Erika Squires was in this show. I have been to many shows she has been in through the years and I confess I have often preferred to watch her rather than anyone else on stage. That is why if you want my attention focused on centre stage, it's probably just best to cast her as the lead. Quite a few people already have.

In this show, she was a supporting player and she provided excellent support. She played several different characters and they were in fact different characters and not just Erika wearing a different funny hat (she wore quite a few funny hats). I particularly liked the hat she wore while she was doing a pretty nifty accent (sorry, Erika, I forget who you were even though I won't forget the performance).

As tempting as it was to just watch Erika, I must admit that I kept getting distracted by all the other people wearing funny hats and beards and shower caps and plumage, too.

I kind of know most of the people who were wearing all this outlandish gear because I have had the privilege to work with them. I have been in the chorus of several shows where they have been the leads or filled the character roles so I knew going in they were talented. I recommend being in the chorus of a musical if ever you can manage it because you get to watch the show over and over again without paying a dime. You also get to see how the sausage gets made and it is worth every minute of your "real" life that you give up to be at all those rehearsals where you have to "wait" until it's your turn to sing. I am not a big fan of waiting and I hardly ever feel like I am waiting for anything when I am watching these people perform.

For this particular show, I could tell you about Jeff Simms who found his inner parrot as well as his hilarious old Newfoundland codger, while also finding time to dance and sing as a dog.

I could tell you about Emily Follett who became Hermione Gingold as she sang about testicles - I actually remember who Hermione Gingold is so I was pretty sure I was looking at her in that moment.

I could tell you about Dan Lasby who played Flatulent Frederick, The Felicitous Philatelist, a character and a song that are just as funny as they sound.

I could tell you about Andrew Preston who was a hopeful young man dreaming of being a showman and also an annoying paperboy, a hilarious thorn in a tetchy Florenz Ziegfeld's side. Philip Goodridge's Ziegfeld and his John Anderson Sr. are also worth mentioning in greater detail than I am giving him.

I could tell you about Kiersten Noel whose long hobble dragging a chair across stage was never not funny. She also made me cry real tears as Genevieve Lyon, a woman who died too soon, for her husband and the rest of us as well.

I absolutely should tell you about John Williams who played John Murray Anderson, the Impresario himself, who made me watch him despite all the amazingly talented people beside and behind him, who made me listen to him when there was so much else I could have been listening and looking at.

I could go on and on about everyone in the show but my husband thinks I should get to the point more often.

None of this would have been possible without the guys who wrote and staged the play, director/dramaturg Tim Matson and music director/orchestrator Kyle McDavid. Kyle is also given credit for graphic and set design as well as playing the impresario's brother and playing piano in the band, who performed onstage and were often an active part of the set.  I guess that made him the conductor too. I am tempted to add chief cook and bottle washer to Kyle's credits.

It would be pointless to single either of them out so I guess I will just have to mention that the staging was inventive and fun, the story moved along and was moving, the music was hilarious and sad and memorable.

I particularly want to mention Piss & Vinegar, In Colorado, If I Don't Get a Drink in the Next Five Minutes, and Anderson's Time.  I am tempted just to list all the songs.

I should also give a shout out to the choreography and the costuming and maybe even to my sister, Jane, who loaded the prop crates back into her truck at the end of the evening.

There are no small roles only small actors and small reviewers who can't take the time to thank all the people who are responsible for the success of a show.

All of the people I mentioned above, and all of those I didn't, are deserving of my thanks for giving me and everyone else in the audience a really good time on a Saturday night.

not gone, just probably forgotten

So, hello there. How've you been? Good, good. Having managed to drag yourself from your sick bed to read this, I'm glad to hear you're still alive although possibly not well.

I have been gone, lo these many days, not because of illness, unless it was African sleeping sickness. It would appear I slept October completely away.

But lest you think I was completely slothful last month, I spent a good deal of my waking hours trying to acquire a costume for She Who Does Not Obey who had decided to be a black cat this year.

Last year I helped my mother make SWDNO a Jasmine costume, which took several weeks to do, what with the trip to the fabric store scrounging for just the right shade of aqua silk amongst the fabric ends, the cutting of many oddly-shaped pieces, and the tricky sewing. My mother did all the tricky sewing, however. I did manage to jerry-rig a matching costume for SWDNO's Webkinz chihuahua, Ruffer, though.

Unfortunately, the Jasmine pattern came with an Ariel pattern as well, so SWDNO had declared that she was going to be Ariel next. I felt guilty that my mother had done the lion's share of the work, so I was determined to do more of the work on Ariel even though I had no idea when I would find the time. Ruffer was sure to demand her matching outfit as well.

So when SWDNO declared at the end of September that Ariel's services were no longer required, I was delighted. Black cat was going to be a slam dunk. Black clothes we've got, all we needed were some pointy ears and a tail.

That of course was before the two of us spent three weekends at three different stores trying to find said items. And when we couldn't find what we came for, she still managed to talk me into spending ridiculous amounts of money on spooky Halloween props for a "Tunnel of Doom" she wanted to set up in our foyer - only to have the Tunnel cancelled because several of the things we bought gave her the willies.

Our third store was sure to be the charm, I thought, given that it's the most popular one in town for cheap costumes. Still we were forced to wander aimlessly through the store for ages, like zombies in a vegetable patch, unable to uncover a single feline accessory until we devoured, I mean, engaged the help of a staff member who actually worked in the Halloween section.

Then, when we got it home, the dog ate the cat costume.

Finally we arrived on the all-sainted day, new costume purchased albeit briefly misplaced, only to have a new concern on the horizon. One of her friends down the street had come down with the H1N1 virus.

Everyone in town had been in a mad panic to get the vaccination the day before Halloween after those two kids died up in Ontario, causing the provincial government to crack down and enforce restrictions on who was to be vaccinated. My kid was too damn healthy and too damn old, at the tender age of eight, so she was out of luck.

The news agencies reported that people were considering not going out this year, trying to limit contact with possible sources of contagion, aka candy givers. Most of my acquaintances reported a reduction in the number of kids who came to their doors.

We went trick-or-treating despite it all and survived the experience - even while accompanied by the younger sister of her afflicted friend.

Now we are waiting for our turn at vaccination to come, attempting to fortify ourselves with the large candy stash SWDNO has hidden away in a Secret Box in her bedroom - the location of which is no secret to anyone, the dog included.

Half my choir is missing in action this week, which wasn't that disturbing until today when some of the previously absent reappeared, coughing vigourously throughout the session.

I had the urge to shout "Stop spraying your filthy germs on me you plague-infested swine!" but somehow managed to restrain myself.

Not that I'm getting paranoid or anything.

Still if you would kindly coat yourself in Purell before your next visit, it would be greatly appreciated.

sing low

I did something very unexpected and impulsive last week.

I joined a choir.

I am just that kind of a wild and crazy girl.

I haven't sung in a choir since high school, or was it junior high?

I don't remember high school singing, but I do remember being in Glee Club in junior high - sadly not in the least bit like the new tv show. I really liked being in the Glee Club, but there was one thing I could never come to terms with.

Mrs. Dawson made me sing alto.

I didn't like singing alto. Altos are the third class citizens of the all-girl choir, let me tell you.

Altos sing the same note over and over and over until suddenly they don't and where that next note is supposed to be was usually beyond me. I couldn't seem to anticipate it.

I absolutely love to sing but hated the struggle to figure out just what notes I was supposed to be singing. I have a pretty good memory for songs I like, for anything with a good hook, but we were usually given a few cursory runs through the alto line and then left to fend for ourselves while the sopranos and 2nd sopranos got to breeze through the melody lines.

The fun parts. The parts that made the songs so memorable. The parts that made you want to sing the songs in the first place.

When I was in the 9th grade, our school staged Oliver, one of my favourite musicals. So many of those songs are wonderfully singable - although some of the lyrics (Consider Yourself, Food Glorious Food, I'd Do Anything) are practically impossible to remember if you are a lazy 14-year-old trying to coast by on the memories of other 14-year-olds who were hoping you were going to memorize it.

On the other hand, if called upon, I could belt out every verse of Who Will Buy, including the introductory bits sung by the chorus. It is a lovely song with sopranos offering "ripe strawberries ripe" and 2nd sopranos plaintively calling for someone to "buy my sweet red roses". I could totally hit those notes too, but instead I was called upon to offer "knives, knives to grind" hitting mournful notes that still grind on my nerves.

I suppose the part is actually for bass voices, but while we had many boys in the production, we were in junior high after all - very few testicles had dropped sufficiently at that point to produce sounds low enough. The altos were probably the only ones man enough to do it.

To make matters worse, we had to come in a half beat behind everyone else, on an obscure note that none of us could recognize if it had jumped up and grabbed us by our non-existant balls. Our Nancy, the female lead, was recruited to bring us in somewhere in the approximate vicinity of the correct time.

If all these sour grapes lead you to believe that the part I really wanted to sing was that of the female lead, then you would be right. I did want that part and I tried out for it, but I was no match for the girl who rightfully got the lead. She had a strong, beautiful, mature voice with a terrific range that I never could have matched. She did us proud.

I think that I am a pretty good singer but my difficulties with singing alto convinced me that I was inappropriately placed. I was convinced that my music teacher had never listened to my voice long enough to know what I should be singing.

So when the opportunity to join this choir came along the other day, with the offer of placing you in a section based on a quick check of your range, I jumped at the chance.

I went to the class and eagerly stepped up for my turn to sing my scales.

So the guy listens to me strain for the highest notes and then comfortably sing the low and he pronounces my sentence: Alto 2.

In horror, I begged and was granted the small mercy of Alto 1, but my dreams of singing the goddamn tune already were finally and irrevocably dashed. My voice has betrayed me.

So now I am trying to make the best of it, dusting off my sight-reading skills (almost non-existant), and listening really hard to the ladies sitting around me who apparently know what the hell they are doing.

The first song we are singing is an excerpt from a larger piece. I don't know what it is called, the only thing identifying it is the handwritten word "Pink". I think this might be the composer, although I'm pretty sure it's not this Pink what with it being in Latin and all.

After a few classes, I was starting to think I'd never get anywhere, my memory of the chorus consisting of this:

Gloria in excelsis deo / something something SOMEthing /
some somethingy thing / thingy voluntatis

Also that there was something in there about a minibus.

But then by the fourth class, I suddenly had that, all two lines of it. I felt proud of myself for about two minutes until we got started on the verses and I quickly got in over my head again. By verse 3, we were singing about Chakotay in something or other. I'm still not sure how the tune goes, losing my place on the sheet music quite easily, so I continue to listen hard and try to fake the tougher bits until I have heard it sung correctly enough by my better trained compadres to follow suit.

I will try not to be discouraged. It helps that today the instructor mentioned that composers were not very imaginative when it came to writing alto parts and that they were hard to sing. So I guess it's not just me, then.

I am enjoying it at least even if I still feel the need to mutter under my breath from time to time.

I will go on singing about Chakotay on a minibus at least until the Christmas concert and then we shall see.