Gotta Have Heart

Just back from the Friday night, second week performance of Damn Yankees.

Well done, full of surprises, glad I was there. What a night in the theatre!!!

I mean, overall, the performances were energetic, engaging and fun. I was particularly impressed with Lisa Christopher, Beth Olson and Mary Willard. I knew Lisa had talent, but she really sold me on this nice middle aged Washingtonian transplant. Her first solo, "Six months out of every year," was a great piece of work. Thanks, Lisa, for the song.

Beth and Mary, as the two older biddies who provide a kind of chorus to the Faustian epic, were just wonderfully comic. The obligato on the Gotta Have Heart reprise was just fun as well a funny. It's not that I didn't think these two women could pull off these parts - just that I was delighted by what they did with their small roles.

The major players in the show, well, what can you say but marvelous. Absolutely marvelous.

I have to single out Tyler Johnson's performance, however. Tyler is an old hand at Broadway RFD and at musicals in general. In his senior year at Bethany he played the role of El Gaio in The Fantastics, a role with many similarities to Mr. Applegate (dark, mysterious, controlling). They're not the same role, but these seem to be roles that come easy to Tyler - the dark, mysterious man. He played Applegate like it was the role he was born to play. "Those were the good old days" was worth the price of admission.

Of course, you can't have everything you want in the theatre. It just doesn't happen. Even the highest budget productions have a few things lacking.

This production is no exception. The cast members, particularly the younger ones, sometimes had pitch difficulties. The lack of a follow spot was a problem, since the lighting plot at Swensson bandshell depends on the follow-spot for full illumination. There were two or three par cans that needed new bulbs.

What happened?

I suspect that there was some difficulty getting all of the volunteers Cody needed, and thus we were short on follow spot operators. I know that we don't provide feedback monitors for the stage, and I suspect that it is difficult to hear the orchestra on stage. We need to get in the habit of doing light checks early enough to replace bulbs. In other words, all stuff that can be corrected, and nothing that seriously detracted from an enjoyable evening of theatre.

In the beginning of the process I posted a video interview of Cody. He said then that he hoped he would have a theatre piece the community could enjoy. He accomplished his goal.

Lola

Rachel Bouza, a Bethany College rising sophomore, is playing the part of Lola, in Broadway RFD's production of Damn Yankees.

Bouza's from Tonganoxie, Kansas - another small town with an odd name. She's had lots of experience on stage and behind the scenes at her High School, but due to scheduling difficulties she's only worked behind the scenes at Bethany. She designed hair and makeup for Talley's Folly and worked on choreography for Godspell.

My favorite role, among her many, was her role in Philadelphia Story. There she played the Katherine Hepburn role, Tracy Lord. There are several reasons that connection is amusing. One you'll have to google for yourself (or your can check it out on IMDB). Spell the first name with an i and add an S to the last name.

The movie Philadelphia Story, however, is on my list of movies to study to try to understand comic views of Swedish Americans. In this movie the reporter, Elizabeth Imbrie, (played by Ruth Hussey) has a line about being impervious to criticism because she comes from Swedish stock. That's off the point, but this is a blog and anything is fair game for blogging.

So, little Rachel is playing Little Lola, who gets whatever Lola wants. This is, she says, a bit of a stretch. She has the self confidence to play a seductress, but she needs to "fine tune" some of the moves of seduction.

She's got a good grasp of character. She sees Lola as growing through the play - not being a Margaretta (this is an adaptation of Faust, says Director Whetstone) - but Lola grows from being Applegate's tool to being a fan of the game to being in love with Joe Hardy. That should be an interesting transformation to watch on stage.

It almost makes Damn Yankees Lola's play.

First News from Damn Yankees process

A brand new blog, with a brand new name, and a new purpose. I've run into difficulty getting community news through the Lindsborg New Record, so I want to see if I can by pass that outlet and still get news out. I also want to see if I can manage to get the post with embedded video. It's one way to spend at least part of my summer free time and use my cameras and video editing itch.

To start off, here's an short video interview with Cody Whetstone.