I attended Scapa Lafayette’s
production of The Music Man at 2pm on
Saturday, April 30th at the Opera House in Lexington, Kentucky. The
author of the show is Meredith Willson and the director was Alberta Labrillazo.
The cast is made up of SCAPA and Lafayette students including Troy Walton,
Cooper Fitch, Shannon Calkins, Kurtis Brown, and Lily Rasmussen.
Synopsis
Act 1
The show follows salesman Harold Hill
as he arrives in River City, Iowa. Harold Hill is known amongst salesmen for
showing up in a city and promising parents to teach their kids how to play
instruments. He takes orders for instruments and uniforms and once they arrive
and everything is paid for he disappears. The show opens with a group of
salesmen on a train discussing consumer credit and then they switch to the
topic of Harold Hill. It is revealed as the train reaches River City that
Harold Hill is sitting on the train with them and they don’t realize it until Harold
is off the train and it has begun moving again. Harold goes to the center of
the city and after meeting up with Marcellus, an old friend, he decides he’s
going to need to create a problem to convince the people of River City that
they need a band. He finds out that the city just got a pool table and decides
that he will convince the people that this will be a source of trouble in their
town. Marcellus also tells Harold that Marian Paroo, a librarian who gives
piano lessons, is the only person in the city with musical training. Harold
follows Marian home in an attempt to flirt with her and win over her affections
but he fails.
The next day at the town’s July 4th
celebration Harold shows up saying he will save the town from the sin and
corruption of the pool table by forming a boys’ band. The Mayor, who bought the
pool table, gets the school board to ask Harold for his credentials but Harold
distracts them by getting them to form a barbershop quartet. Harold also
convinces Tommy, a young boy known to be a troublemaker and hated by the mayor,
to become his assistant and sets him up with Zaneeta, who happens to be the
Mayor’s eldest daughter. Harold tries and fails again to win over Marian. The
board again tries to get his credentials and he throws them off again by
leading them in song. The ladies of the town then find him excited about the
dance committee he’s putting together and once he mentions Marian they try to
convince him that she’s not the woman for him. They talk of a rumor they heard
that she used to be a relationship with a man named Madison because he gave the
town the library but left all the books to her.
The next day Harold comes to the
library to visit Marian and declares his unrequited love for her while leading
the teenagers in the library in dance. By this time, with Tommy’s help, Harold
has signed up every boy in town for the band including Marian’s little brother
Winthrop. Marian finds evidence against Harold and tries to show it to the
Mayor but everyone is distracted when the instruments arrive. Marian sees how
excited and confident her brother is when his cornet arrives and she rips the
page incriminating Harold out of the book before she gives it to the Mayor.
Act 2
Later on Marian talks to Harold
about her brother and his cornet and how he says you don’t have to bother with
the notes. Harold explains that this is “his revolutionary new idea” called
“The Think System”. With the Think System you don’t have to worry about knowing
notes, you just have to think and play. Later that night, Marian is sitting on
her porch waiting for Harold to come when a salesman named Charlie Cowell shows
up claiming he has evidence against Harold to deliver to the Mayor. Marian
tries to flirt with Cowell in an attempt to delay him so he doesn’t have time
to deliver the evidence and still make his train.
Harold then shows up and Marian
confronts him about the rumor Cowell told her that Harold had a girl in every
county of Indiana. Harold reminds her of the untrue rumors she heard about her
and Marian decides that what Cowell told her wasn’t true. Marian and Harold
later meet at the footbridge and Marcellus interrupts them saying that the band
uniforms have arrived and Harold should get the money and run. Marian reveals
to Harold that she’s known he’s a fraud since 3 days after he arrived and she
gives him the page she tore out of the book. After they walk away from each
other Harold realizes he’s in love with Marian.
Meanwhile Cowell is at the ice
cream social telling the townspeople that Harold’s a fraud and they soon start
to search for him. Marian and Winthrop come across Harold Winthrop tells him he
wishes he never came to River City. But Marian says she believes every word
Harold said because they came true in the way the kids talked and acted all
summer. She and Winthrop urge Harold to get away but he decides to stay telling
Marian he never fell in love until he met her and Harold is led away in
handcuffs.
The Mayor holds a meeting in the
gym in which he asks what they should do with Harold and asks where the band
is. Marian tries to defend Harold. Tommy comes out dressed as a drum major
leading a band of kids. Harold leads the kids in Minuet in G and even though
the kids have limited musical ability the parents are delighted by the fact
that their kids are playing music and even the Mayor is won over.
Technical
Aspects
Set: Had many different
backgrounds to represent different areas of the city. They had many different
physical sets including a train car, the front porch of Marian’s house, a store
front for the center of the city, a stage for the school gym, and a bridge.
Each of the sets represented a different area of the city and all were used
well by the cast. Marian slammed the door of her house, Harold ran onto the
stage to get people’s attention, and at the beginning of the performance in the
train the performers used the sound of the train to create a beat.
Lights: They used many different
colors of lights to represent different feelings. When they were outside they
used yellower lights to portray natural lighting. Often when Harold and Marian
were together they used red and blue lighting together to create a feeling of
romance. When they were outside at night they used blue lighting to create the
sense of moonlight.
Costumes: All of the costumes
were fit to the time the performance was set in: the early 1900’s. All of the
girls had long dresses and many of them had fancy hats to go along. All of the
boys wore long pants and a vest and most of the men wore full business suits.
They made jokes in the performance that it was wrong for girls to show their
ankles or for boys to let their socks fall down which calls to the thoughts of
what was proper attire back then.
Music: Music was used in the
performance along with other technical aspects to create mood. Music was used
in the background in some scenes of walking to give an extra something to
performance and also to portray lightness in the feeling of the scene. The show
is a musical so music was also used to express feelings through words and dance
as well. Dancing closely usually indicated intimacy and the lyrics of a song
let us know what characters were thinking and feeling.
Overall the performance was very
good. It was a love story but was different than most because of Harold not
being truthful. But also, Marian wasn’t blindsided by the truth, in fact she
knew almost the entire time, which is very different than most stories with a
plot line like this. It also shows the importance of trying something new and
especially the importance of music. The main plot of this musical is the goal
of creating a band in this town that otherwise has very little musicality. The
reactions and excitement of the children shows how important it is for children
to be able to try something new and especially shows how music can positively
affect children. Even though the children knew pretty much nothing about their
instruments the fact that they could simply make a noise out of it excited them,
and this is the main point of music. This also affected the parents because
while they were opposed to Harold, the second their children began playing
their instruments they became enraptured and were so proud that their children
could play an instrument.
Overall I give the performance a
9 out of 10 because it was very good and well produced but, like most shows, it
was not perfect and there were some volume and pronunciation issues that could
be fixed.
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