THEATER REVIEW: “The Music Man” dazzles at Lamb's Players

River City, Iowa’s got trouble (“with a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for pool”) in Meredith Willson’s 1957 musical “The Music Man.”

Lamb’s Players Theatre offers the biggest show in its 40-year history – a smashing production of this beloved paean to small-town life and small-time crooks – through July 24 on their main stage in Coronado.

From the clever opening – “Seventy-Six Trombones” played on piccolo, accordion and pennywhistle – through the rousing finale, this show offers irresistible tunes, smart lyrics and a funny and touching story, wonderfully directed by Deborah Gilmour Smyth.

You remember the plot: Professional huckster Harold Hill (Rick D. Meads) arrives in River City with his latest con – a boys’ band. He offers citizens instruments and uniforms (for a price) with the intention of skipping town with the cash before he actually has to lead the band.

But a prim librarian named Marian Paroo (Sandy Campbell) steals his heart and throws a monkey wrench into the works.

It’s a simple plot, augmented by wonderful touches like a terrific barbershop quartet (Kürt Norby, Geno Carr, John Polhamus and Lance Arthur Smith) and a group of ladies calling themselves the Daughters of Hiawatha and led by the mayor’s wife (Kerry Meads), who do a hilarious dance at the town’s Fourth of July celebration.

Campbell’s Marian doesn’t take any guff from Meads’ Harold Hill, whose con- man charm dissipates in her disapproving glare. But you can’t stay mad long at a guy who conquers the terminal shyness of your little brother Winthrop (Lane Palhegyi) with a cornet, and takes a hoodlum like Tommy (Jesse Abeel) and rehabilitates him with music.

Mike Buckley’s set and Jeanne Reith’s color-coordinated costumes fit the period (1911), Colleen Kollar Smith has added some terrific choreography, and Nathan Peirson’s lighting, Patrick Duffy’s sound and G. Scott Lacy’s new arrangements are all spot-on.

It’s a fine cast all around, including several adorable kids and too many adults to mention.

And the songs! Ah, I miss the old musicals. How can you beat the comic “Iowa Stubborn” and “Pickalittle (Talk-a-Little)” or the rollicking “Shipoopi,” the romantic “Goodnight, My Someone” and “Till There Was You” or all the great barbershop songs.

With 32 actors, an orchestra of four, more than 200 costumes and a budget of about $350,000, this is a huge undertaking for Lamb’s, especially in these tough economic times.

Seventy Times 7=? « rhetoric and popular culture

Seventy Times 7

Seventy Times 7, from Brand New’s  2001 debut full-length album, takes on a familiar tone to many of their songs, which can definitely be described as intense.  There is indeed a tale behind the writing of this song, which, from most accounts, goes back to the writer, Jesse Lacey’s good friendship with then guitarist of Taking Back Sunday, John Nolan. Apparently, there was an incident where Jesse’s girlfriend at the time cheated on him with John. –There is a whole story how Taking Back Sunday has a song in response to this one, it is actually quite interesting in seeing how the same, or similar incident plays out through two different sounds and songs–  Regardless of what events legitimately occurred, the song is very clearly a poetic illusion of such events.

Lines such as   ”Everyone’s caught on to everything you do/Everyone’s caught on to…/(and I can’t let you let me down again)”  lend to the tragic lyrics as well, as most of the whole song does.

For most of the song, the music is rather incongruent to the lyrics. While the lyrics continue to tell of this hard time in the songwriter’s life, yet the music is quite upbeat, especially compared to many of the bands other songs of a similar nature. The chords sound major, and upbeat even. The pace and rate of both the instruments and the vocals are quite upbeat as well, with the only apparent indication of the desolation of the song in the background chorus-like vocals shouting “I hope you choke and die!”.  There is a ‘calmer’ part to the tune, yet it is still not as ‘depressing’ as the lyrics would suggest. After this part, the vocals become louder, bringing out the almost shouting style that is seen in much of Brand New’s songs. Here, the style becomes more congruent, sounding almost like he has finally gotten to his breaking point, and can now finally say all that he means and wanted to in this situation. At this point, the rate of the music speeds up, and gets heavier as the vocals increase. This helps get the emotion across, in what I think to be a very effective manner.

I do agree that there are parts of this song where the singer’s emotion is expressed quite well but I wonder why they chose to make the rest of the song so upbeat given the topic. At the beginning you would never guess the lyrics to come and it almost seems like the lyrics were meant for a different song. In my opinion his emotion might have been better expressed with darker music as this almost seems to be mocking the pain he is feeling. All just a matter of opinion though!

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The Spectator

Revelation's Rhapsody, Listening to the Lyrics of the Lamb: How to Read the Book of Revelation

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