On The Avenue I'm Taking You to...42nd Street

I had the privilege of enduring a special form of torture last weekend. We were out of town visiting MK's former home town, and our visit happened to coincide with the Spring Musical at her old high school. Since she was involved in these musicals as a member of stage crew during her high school years, we decided to attend and see this years edition: 42nd Street.

I regret that the lighting was not better in the theater during the show, because I gladly would have written a running diary of the entire event. As it was, I managed a few notes before, during and after to remind myself of the copious blogging fodder that was all around. I will not review this like I do with movies or books, because this can only be properly described when one considers the whole experience.

Before I get started on this I want to make sure that I have the disclaimer that I am aware this was a high school production, and I am not attempting to hold high school students to the same standard I would hold professionals. I was in a few plays (fortunately not musicals) during high school, and I certainly do not believe that these plays (which also starred Malibulibrarian, for the record) would garner any sort of positive reviews from anyone not involved or directly related to someone involved in the production. On to the event...

We arrived about a half-hour early, and I began taking in the scenery. The people waiting in the lobby ranged from not yet in high school to just shy of embalmed. The styles dress and hairstyles were almost as varied. Some people obviously felt the need to dress for the theater (even if the theater was a school), while others wore ripped jeans and black concert t-shirts (keep in mind this was last weekend, not 1988). Some people had blue hair, others had Red Hats, even others had blue hair (note the difference between blue hair of the intentional "pay attention to me" type and blue hair of the old lady rinse type.).

When we reached our seats I began browsing through the program, which was almost 200 pages long. Unfortunately, only about 5-10 pages were actual information, while the rest was advertising. As I scanned the various ads, I realized that I kept seeing ads placed by family and friends of the cast and crew congratulating them and wishing them luck. While I am sure that this is a wonderful thing, as I noticed the same people being congratulated over and over, I couldn't help but wonder how much it must suck to be the person who doesn't get any messages in the program, when your fellow cast member gets three or four different ones.

I also noticed a few other disturbing or funny (depending on your take) things about these ads. First there was the issue of the ads from family. These would typically say "congratulations from" and then have a list of the members of the family. There were some of these with the names of more than 10 kids. This was at a Catholic school, but 10 kids? An almost certainly apocryphal remark of Groucho Marx from You Bet Your Life suddenly came to mind. Often, following each family member's name was a year of graduation. This is a little odd, in that it seems somewhat exclusive to anyone whose parents and/or siblings did not attend the same school. What makes it even more strange is that the graduation years went all the way up to '20. Apparently, the five year olds have already decided which private school they are going to when they get older. For their sake, I hope they never have to repeat a grade. My favorite of the ads however was the one in which a family instructed their daughter to "Never loose your zest for life." Yes, it's definitely much better if your zest is tight. You don't want it loose and flapping around all over the place. Then there were the other ads. The most intriguing of these was an ad for a photographer. He showed off some of his best work which included a Senior picture of one girl which appeared to have been taken while someone forced her to smell a skunk. At least, that's the only explanation I can think of for the expression on her face (the picture also showed up in an ad wishing her luck with the musical). Does it say something about the photographer or about her that this was a picture they chose to show off not once, but twice?

After a few minutes of me mocking the ads, and MK scanning the crowd fearful of seeing, or worse being recognized by, anyone she knows, it was finally time for the curtain to go up. I can't guarantee that what I saw after this was accurate, because the school had prepared for the evening by setting the thermostat to "Broil" and by this point the sweat on my brow had begun to drip into my eyes. Unfortunately, the sweat did not impair my ability to hear.

The curtain went up and instantly the cheering began. People all over the auditorium were doing what can only be described as "hootin' and hollerin'." It was Redneck Broadway. As the first few people came onto the stage, I couldn't help but notice, even from our seats way at the back in the balcony, that the makeup had been done by Tammy Faye Baker. Either that or we had mistakenly stumbled into a drag show.

This would probably be a good time for me to talk about my feelings on musicals in general. I don't dislike musicals, but I do feel that they have several issues going against them right away. First is the requirement of the suspension of disbelief. Most plays, movies and television shows require this to some extent. Musicals take this one step further by having people spontaneously burst into song and/or dance. Sure, you may just suddenly start singing every now and then, but how often do you come up with a brand new song right on the spot? And how often do strangers on street pick it up and join in? To help ease this issue, many musicals are themselves about musicals. This way much of the singing takes place in the context of performing a musical. 42nd Street is one of those, as are No Business Like Show Business, Moulin Rouge and A Chorus Line. A second issue for musical theater (as opposed to musical movies) is that all dialogue is performed right there in front of an audience. Acting in a play is much different than in a film. The actors must speak at, but not to, the audience. There is an automatic level of self-awareness in any live performance like a play or musical that borders on self-parody, intentional or not. Can these things be overcome? Of course, otherwise the musical would have gone the way of the dodo long ago. Are these things best left to professionals? Yeah, I should say so.

A few other random things I noticed along the way:

"Act natural." That is a direction that all people who have ever acted in a play have heard, whether it was a first grade skit at the PTA meeting or the high school musical. Sadly, far too many people ignore it. The urge is to shout out at the audience and over annunciate each word. Apparently, no one listened to that direction this time either.

Either I'm getting really old or some of these kids could not be in high school yet. In theory I suppose it could be like the aforementioned plays from my school days. When we ran short on actors, the principal filled parts with some of his brood. Maybe that's why, but there was one boy who played several roles in 42nd Street, including a thug that beats someone up amusingly enough, who looked like he could not have been more than 12.

From Merriam Webster:
Chase: Verb. To follow rapidly, hunt, pursue
Chaise: Noun. Chaise lounge. A long reclining chair
You'd think that at a school somebody, maybe even the director, would know the difference. Judging by the multiple uses of "chase" rather than "chaise", I guess not.

I truly hate intermissions. The long pause in the middle of a performance has always been annoying to me. More than the break, it is the idiots who do not bother to return to their seats that really bug me. The lights are dimmed or flashed to indicate that the intermission is ending and the second act is about to begin, but people are still up milling about and a dull roar continues for at least another 5-10 minutes.

One of the strangest things about the performance was that it was often quite difficult to hear the people singing. The orchestra was much louder than the performers. I had to wonder if this might have been intentional.

I did feel that perhaps I was being too harsh and perhaps I shouldn't think of this as torture, until just before the first Act ended MK leaned over and whispered, "I am finding this painful to watch."
Unfortunately, she didn't let me leave at intermission.

Well, I'm off to live in fear of retribution from Malibulibrarian for outing him as a former high school actor.

Until later...