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Mom's
Walt's been waiting to see me post this magnet, so I'm just doing it to make him happy. Household Hints from A Medieval
Home Companion: Take care that you are respectibly dressed... ...without introducing new fashions, and without too much, or too little, ostentation. Before you leave your room or the house, first see that the collars of your shift, your petticoat, your frock, or your coat do not overlap, as is the case with some drunken, silly, or ignorant women who, not considering their reputation or the propriety of their rank or that of their husbands, go about with gaping eyes, heads appalling elevated, like a lion, their hair sticking out of their headdresses, and the collars of their shifts and dressed overlapping--walking mannishly and conducting themselves before people indecently and without shame. (Gee, Peggy--do you think this includes shoulder pads and labels?) I am a theatre critic OK...so it's a new "career", but if you're interested in reading my reviews, go here Updated 2/11/01 WHAT I'M READING... also He, She and It (both books very slowly!) WHAT I WATCHED... RIVERDANCE That's it for today!
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TAPPITY-TAP-TAP-TAP 8 March 2001 Nothing like two hours of tapping and boudhrans and uilleann pipes to get the blood circulating. Yes, after Seeds (a 2-1/2 star show) and Tommy (a 2-star show), I finally hit pay dirty tonight. We were 7th row center for the touring company production of Riverdance. I’ve been looking forward to this ever since I became a critic and saw the schedule of touring Broadway shows for this season. It’s not like we haven’t seen Riverdance. Is there anyone left in the country who hasn’t had at least passing acquaintance with this show? Our association with Riverdance goes back farther than most. You may or may not know that Riverdance began in 1994. Ireland was the host country for that year’s Euro Songfest and traditionally the host country provides the intermission entertainment while the votes are being tallied. Somehow Michael Flatley and Jean Butler, both Irish dancers, were available and they worked up the 7 minute Riverdance number, which combined singers, Irish instruments, and the dancers. Well, apparently it took the audience in the theatre and the television audience by storm. Before the number even ended, the television station was flooded with calls from all around the world inviting Flatley and Butler to bring the show to their country. We arrived in Dublin a month or two later and on our first night, Walt’s mother’s cousin Nora took us to her daughter’s house and told us she had a videotape we simply HAD to see. It was the tape of Riverdance. The number was so short that they actually recorded it on the videotape twice, added footage of the opening credits for the Songfest, and sold the thing as a fund raiser for Rwanda. We immediately fell in love with it and we bought videotapes and cassette tapes to bring home as souvenirs for the family. I remember that the reaction from just about everbody was..."huh???" To a person they were decidedly underwhelmed and didn’t see in the number what we had seen. Some time later, Nora wrote to say that the tour of the number had been so enthusiastically received that Flatley and Butler were working it up into a whole show and would be trying to see how that would be received. It opened in Dublin in 1995. Tom graduated from Cal Poly in June of 1996 and the morning of his graduation, I happened to pick up a newspaper in the bar of the hotel where we were staying for the graduation and I discovered that Riverdance would be at the Pantages theatre in Los Angeles six months later. I immediately called for tickets. When the time came, we drove to Los Angeles to see Riverdance for the first time live. It was a gala night, with the red carpet/searchlight treatment. We asked our companions in the nosebleed section of the theatre how they happened to get their tickets, which were apparently quite difficult to get. They, too, had seen the videotape in Ireland and ordered tickets six months in advance. It was a memorable night. The dancing was incredible. I could have done without all the ancient mystic stuff, but the dancing made the trip worthwhile. Then, of course Riverdance was discovered by PBS and the world has not been the same since (in fact, Walt pointed out that our local PBS station is having pledge week and so it seems weirdly appropriate that we should be watching Riverdance!) . We bought the videotape, of course--it complements the original Rwanda tape we bought in Dublin (which must be a collector’s item now). I was really curious to see how this latest incarnation holds up. Flatley and Butler are long gone and I was curious to see how the leads would be. I was pleasantly surprised by this version. The mysticism is gone; the singers are now dressed in evening gowns and the songs work into the evening much better. The lead male lacks Flatley’s pizzazz, but he was nothing to sneeze at (even with my cold!). The female lead was a bit more engaging than I remember Jean Butler being. I recall Butler holding the prim ramrod rigid upper body while the legs and feet were going a mile a minute, but I don’t remember her breaking position to do ballet moves with her upper body. So I felt this woman was a bit more...endearing. I liked her. I liked him too, but not as well as Flatley. The whole thing seemed to hang together for me much better than the show we saw at the Pantages and I will be giving it 5 stars. Basically it’s because I’m a sucker for tap dancing and you can’t get much better than the precision of this group--unless you can afford to go to New York and see the Rockettes. I figure this was my "reward" for having sat through the two bad shows this week. It was worth it! ~~
The Last Session ~~ |
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Some pictures from this
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Created 3/07/01 by Bev Sykes |
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