THE SOUND OF MUSIC

by Ed Bruce edbrucevegas@yahoo.com

More 4 star stuff ! ! !

This in its final week at Tuachan (outdoor theatre in the red rocks canyon) in rural (nine miles from the freeway) St George, Utah. Our second trip in a week (first for Le Mis) ...and our second treat to world class theatre. 129 miles from the Palace Station in Las Vegas, an easy two hours.....watch the interchange traffic....Utah is mountain time. 800 746 9882 http://www.tuachan.org/ GO GO GO GO ! !

Enough promo and time for all of us to experience some of the great treasures of the Southwest !
The Utah Shakespeare Theatre won a Tony in 2000 for best regional theatre....they are up the road 45 miles from St George in Cedar City....they corectly won for merit....Tuachan is just as good and they reached this level in a shorter time period....no expense or detail is spared in their mamouth productions. The theatre is set perfectly in a red rock box canyon and they use the backdrop perfectly for running water, horses, cars and armies. Imagine Maria in her nun garb coming down from the hills in the opening number singing "The Hills are Alive With the Sound of Music" ! You don't have to imagine here... they do it. I am in love with good sound and great lyrics and here its Rodgers and Hammerstein and the best techinical outdoor sound system in the world. Needless to say a perfect 15 piece orchestra was only sensational.

The theatre itself allows for some mamouth stage production which they meld into the plays with great continuity.....big sets, great lighting (to include spotlights into and over the mountains), always good to throw in some fireworks and all put together in perfect continuity....this by director Rodger Sorenson. Thanks Roger ! ! ! Your efforts are not unnoticed ! ! !

In seeing shows multi times you often get things new or missed and I especially like the idea of one of the von Trapp children refering to the swastki as "the black spide".....it may have been in the movie or previous shows....but I caught it this time and it really is big !

I took speech communication broadcasting in college at the University of South Dakota in the 60's with a degree in Telecommunication, the training and well historied critical eye are not lost on everything I have seen in my life, the accuracy of telling the story, continuity, production and creativity are most impressive at Tuachan ! ! !

An excellent program as one would expect, I love the bios and histories and read it all. ! This is truly great stuff !

Mindy Smoot Robbins, a BYU music teacher and equity actor as Maria is second to no one including Julie Andrews. Captain Georg von Trapp was played by understudy Eddy Schumacher on this night and every backup I have ever seen (to include Buddy Holly and Professor Higgins in recent reviews) has always been good, I have no comparison to the main man but Eddy was fine..... this to include the joy of live theatre (you see what you get or get what you see) . Actually the use of a backup in a main role plays to the depth of the production...ok here !

Pretty hard to get away from crying babies in Utah, 4 minutes late, long intermission which many were tardy from in returning....that was about the only negatives.....none in the show itself !

During the final seen of the von Trapps concert an extremely tall Nazi soldier was goose stepping the isles of the theatre with an extremely menacing look on his face.....this guy was the perfect image of what they were telling in the story....he had the look, the swastika, the hat, the boots, the uniform, the belt and an acting ability to convey the message without dialogue.....truly great acting and production.....he made three or four trips and gave me the creeps. EXCELLENT......these are some of the little pieces in putting together the big picture.

96 A .....could get a perfect score in they started on time !