Monday morning

My wireless connection vanished Saturday night and I just got back connected this morning.
We have been running bits of the show and ran all of Act I more or less in sequence with stops because some of it had not yet been staged with this particular group of people (like me).
Ran and staged the end of Act II and then went back to do the rest because the men aren't in all of that. I keep wondering if I can remember all of this precision marching, where a mistake would be so obvious, but the rest of the cast is very supportive of my trying to get this right knowing how hard it is on short notice.


We saw the Capetown South Africa production of Gondoliers last night. Many of us went because we had two of our cast members also in that show. The costumes and dancing were wonderful and the chorus sound was lovely, especially the men in With Happiness the Very Pith. The leads were mixed. I loved Luiz and Guiseppe the most. Gianetta and Cassilda were good altho Cassilda was using a darker sound I didn't like. Marco had a bit of a thin reedy sound but got through TAPOSE creditably. I did not like the Duchess, she was not overbearing enough.

They started with a pantomime during the overture (with flash card titles) that showed how a baby was stolen or swithced or something. Very cute. Then Inez lurked in nearly every scene throughout the show, which I rather liked. When Don Alhambra sent hsi men to fetch her they were Mafiosi in black pin striped suits carrying violin cases. They also ended the 1st act with them wrestling Inez, which I didn't think was very funny. The second act costumes were simply astonishing!

They made some unusual cuts, notably half of Tessa's "now Marco dear," the birthday dialog with Don Alhambra, Tessa's "Farewell my own" . I also missed "O Mt Vesuvius, here we are in arithmetic, " and "he couldn't have been a Plaza-Toro! Oh, couldn't he!"
But this is such a long show, I think these cuts were judicious.

During Don Alhambra's long song about "all possible doubt," the two couples are served spaghetti and blow it out on some surprising point or other.

I did also note that there was only one black player in the whole cast.



Today we have a full costumed run-through.