By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
“The Sound of Music” may as well be called “The Sound of Musicals.” It is the iconic Golden Age American musical.
It’s often staged, and the movie is still a staple for viewing in households and homes for the elderly. That’s not surprising given the show boasts a clutch of instantly recognizable tunes.
The movie is screened, as it was at BGSU in 2014, so people, often in costume, can sing along.
All this poses a challenge for any theater troupe staging it. Aside from the temptation of audience members to sing along, the show is so well known it can become a pageant, more than a dramatic production. The actual drama can get lost as we wait for the next rendition of “My Favorite Things.”
Undeterred The Waterville Playshop has taken on that challenge and succeeded in giving “The Sound of Music” zing.
The musical by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein is on stage at the Maumee Indoor Theatre, 601 Conant St. Maumee tonight (Oct. 25) and Saturday, Oct. 26 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, Oct. 27 2:30 p.m. Tickets are $20 and available at www.watervilleplayshop.org/tickets or in the lobby before the show. The musical is directed by Tammy Fitch with Nicole Spadafore, musical director, Riley Runnells, choreography, and Elaine Parrish, choreographer.
As our Maria, Kristen Fandrey strolls down the aisle singing the theme song. It’s evident she’s intent on channeling Maria through her own imagination, not simply inhabiting the habit of the young postulant we know so well.
Being so familiar with this story, we know she’s late even before overhearing the conclave of nuns —Mother Abbess (Amanda Hoyles), Sister Berthe (Faith Carroll), Sister Margaretta (Jen Orians), and Sister Sophia (Liz Latta) — fretting about what to do with this flighty young woman. “How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?” they wonder
Well, we all could tell them: send her off to be the governess for the children of a wealthy widower, whom she will marry after she has taught his children to sing in harmony bringing music back into the house, and then get out of Austria when the Nazis show up.
The Playshop brings an intimacy and freshness to every turn of the well-known narrative.
Aaron Roos as Captain Von Trapp is suitably rigid before melting before Maria’s charms. Each of the seven children brings out the individuality of their characters. Watch them as they sing as a choir to see how true they are to their roles.
That’s the case for the eldest Liesel (Brooke Dove) down to tiny Gretl (Avery Malloy), who never fails to delight.
The other Trapp children are Nathan Niedzwiecki as Friedrick struggling as the family’s beta male, Claire Wulff as Louisa, the trickster, Layne Spillis as Kurt, who craves is father’s attention, Sage Watkins as Brigetta, the truth teller, and Evie Tumino as the shy Marta.
Liesel is on the brink of womanhood and smitten by Rolf (Aidan Thomas), who delivers telegraphs. He is very serious about his job and his dream of guiding the younger, by a year, Liesel.
Hovering over this enchanting brood is a storm cloud.
Calls and telegrams from Berlin arrive for Franz (Shannon Ruhe) the butler, and Max (Nick Yates), a frequent house guest and music impresario, who is something of a sponge and admits it.
He and Elsa (Ellen Taylor), the wealthy woman who expects to marry the Captain, sing about the difficulty of two rich people having a romance. “No cold water flat have we warmed by the glow insolvency. Up to your necks in security. How can love survive?” (We are hearing the roots of Stephen Sondheim there.)
The number is one the stand outs in this show. Its blithe spirit takes a menacing tone when joined by the captain, in the second act Elsa and Max urge the Captain to go along with the Nazis.
The party scene that ends the first act has guests, where once friends, who no longer speak because some favor the Nazis and others are loyal to Austria, touches close to home in these times.
While Elsa and Max represent the pull of the amoral, uncommitted, the Abbess provides the firm moral center as she urges Maria “To Climb Ev’ry Mountain.”
That’s just what the Trapp family must do in the end, traveling by foot to Switzerland and eventually Stowe, Vermont, where the book on which the musical is loosely based was written.
Theatergoers will find themselves on Conant Street, undoubtedly humming or singing or just having ringing in their heads their favorite things from the musical.
