Another Opening Another Show!

Drama is in my blood. And often I find that I let it not allow me time to do things like keep up to date with my blog... so,lets see if I can keep it up this time...

A lot has happened since I last posted to this blog...indeed I had almost forgotten ( no... delete "almost") that I had started it.

Current show is Oklahoma! and as all true musical fans will know that "!" is necessary, and not just punctuation! One of the features of Oklahoma! is that guns must be fired and these have caused us some bother with the weapons supplied from England (1) not arriving in time and (2) not working properly when they did. This has caused Aunt Eller to have to cuss us out sometimes when the gun she nicks from me refuses to behave as all good guns should. Happily we have devised a solution and all will now proceed as it must.

Another interesting point in Oklahoma! is the love song "People will say we're in love"... this is almost a Rogers/Hammerstein signature on the piece. The love birds Curly/Laurey court each other without saying "I love you"- as indeed they do for the whole of the play. But can anyone deny the depth of love in the song? ditto in Showboat "Only Make Believe" and Carousel "If I Loved You". South Pacific gets close with "Some Enchanted Evening" - but even then all is in the impersonal second person "you"...

But for all that these are love stories pure and simple... sometimes when we want to say something as important as "I love you" , rather than use a hackneyed phrase, it is better and more communicative to say anything else and make the real meaning clear... or in the words of a more modern song... "You say it best when you say nothing at all" !

Ne me quitte pas!

The 20th Century produced many great characters...from the warriors, such as Rommell and Eisenhower, to the Politicians Stalin, Hitler, Churchill and Thatcher. But also very importantly in the arts... and none more so than Jacques Brel.

My first personal introduction to Jacques Brel came some 8 years after his death, but to me at that time he was alive as any singer. Brel was a one and only... he still lives on in his records and even in translation his works (I nearly typed words there) have a power that most modern writers would die to achieve. When I realised that he was dead long beofre I knew of him my sorrow was real...this was a man who had made French a real language to me and as a 16 year old his ideas were somewhat beyond me...

BBC carried a profile of him a couple of nights ago, and thanks to the marvels of the Internet I am listening to the end of that documentary as I type...


His music is as alive now as it was when he was alive... and he still ranks among the top artists of all time in my opinion... True he lacks the mass appeal of the Spice Girls and Robbie Williams, ad the artificiality of the winners of Pop Idol, but Brel has a reality that will transcend all these, and his songs will be sung (in French as well as in translation) long after the modern "stars" have left the stage for good.

Jacques, tu ne me quittes pas, et je suis fier de dire que tu m'as toucher pandant ma jeunesse. J'espere bien que les jeunes de demain comprennent aussi bien que moi ce que tu as essayé de dire. Je te salute!

Not such a drone after all!

Interesting experience tonight. I was at the Linen Hall Library for a rehearsed reading of "The Drone" by Rutherford Mayne. Now here I have to declare an interest... Rutherford Mayne (real name Sam Waddell) was my Great-Great Uncle (mind you I never met him- he died before I was born). The play was written c.1908 and set round about 1901/2, so a part of me expected it to be dated, but, boy, was I wrong! The play was very funny!

The basic premise is about 2 brothers: one of whom (the drone) is kidding himself and his brother that he is an inventor about to make it big (he has been about to do this for 20 years while living off his brother); and the other gets himself involved in a breach of promise lawsuit. With the family facing very real problems, the drone sorts it out!

The laughter tonight was real, and clearly this play from 100 years ago was as relevant today as it was then...

Now my problem is... can I convince our group to put it on next year.... watch this space!

Show's over for a while now...and Ihave been hideously bad at posting to this blog... Reading for Summer Theatre is next week, and I have the horrid task of choosing which of my friends in the group will be part of the cast. I know that some of them will be very disappointed, but also that they will all accept it in the best spirit, and hopefully I can use them behind the scenes. There are only six characters - 3 male, 3 female.. so...

Had a good chat with my dad the other day about the American Elections. They look like they might be shaping up to be one of the most interesting contests in years. In the previous ones there was a real sense of inevitability about who would be the candidate etc, but on both sides this time the races seem to be all too real.

OK, the Republican one is a Hare and Tortoise event... Can Mick Huckabee's tortoise catch John McCain's hare before the finish line of 1191, or is he just too far behind? Should McCain ignore him and coast along while building up a national campaign machine or should he get out there and tackle him head on, thus also giving him the credibility he lacks?

But the Democratic race is much more equal... Most commentators seem to agree that Hillary is bound to lose heavily in the next couple of primaries, But she is a political heavyweight, and Obama cannot afford to get too confident. At this point this race is definitely too close to call, and much though any true lover of democracy hates them, the smokey backrooms will no doubt soon be buzzing with negotiations about the discarded votes of Michigan and Florida, and about the 'John Edwards' delegates.

CNN and Fox News have been talking a wee bit about the Superdelegates - To my mind this is not the undemocratic problem that they think. The Superdelegates are there to give a safety valve... Only when the public cannot decide will their votes become important(witness the fact that only the democratic ones are really being discussed- not the RNC votes in that race), so they should rather be regarded as a "kind of" casting votes... If the democratic voters cannot decide effectively then there has to be some kind of mechanism, so why complain when it is put into operation? The only question is... are there too many of them, and will they prove to be as split as the rest of America?

HMS Pinafore is settling in well. We seemed to avoid the Second Night Slump (where your first night has gone so well that you just stop making that 100% effort -after all last night went alright didn't it?). Visitors from AIMS (Association of Irish Musical Societies) including the National president Winston Johnston. Winston just took over as president in October, but has been a regular visitior to our musicals for many years. I think he enjoyed it!

The show now has 16 more performances to run... and with the costume being mainly white the ould washing machine will take a fair battering this month! For anyone out there who knows G&S, this is not your usual HMS Pinafore - we are using a version from Essgee Productions in Australia... with one or two minor minor tweaks to make it work for Norn Iron audiences. Good fun to do!

First night over

It's always good to get the first night over! 1 down, 17 more to go... The show ran well... a few slip ups here and there, but all in all a good show... I had a mini disaster before even hitting the stage...left the braces I needed for my trousers at home! but a fellow cast member gave me a lift back to get them and all went swimmingly from then. Certainly owe that man a pint!

The show starts before the audience has all been seated... with a warm up comic, and then some of the cast (including yours truly) "dressing" the stage... in my case this consisted of stumbling up some stairs and collapsing drunk! believe it or not it is hard work to play a drunken sailor... but I think I got away with it! I know that my character would never have got on in the real Royal Navy. He'd probably have spent most of his time in the brig.

Real world time.... So Hillary has won Michigan... big surprise that but even more interesting is the numbers.... only 55% of those voting on the democrat side voted for her... which is very telling since there was little incentive for Obama or Edwards supporters to come out (and indeed a tactical reason fro them to vote on the republican side). I have to say that I do not see this as an endorsement for her, and feel that even though there will be no delegates, she has effectively lost this one ... So despite the numbers I declare Michigan as no decision, due to lack of a contest. Move on...

Go HMS Pinafore!

Ok...first post but gonna treat this as if I've been writing it throughout...

The latest Ballywillan musical is ready to set sail! The Set is great and the cast are all fired up and ready to go! Interesting to watch those who are new to the group... although they have now been with us for 4 months and seem like old friends, moving to the Riverside Theatre has obviously been a big experience, and the prospect of a full house tomorrow has set more than one set of nerves on edge...

But they are very well prepared and will quickly settle in... by the end of the week they will be like the rest of us old hands again!

In the wider world elections in America... but in Michigan Democratic voters cannot vote properly since they will not have delegates in the Convention. Alright that decision may be overturned by then, but this will only really happen if the result is beyond doubt... if the result stays on a knife edge then forget it! So what should they do? My own instinct in this case would be to play foul and take part in the Republican primary... Sabotage, anyone?