CITADEL ALIVE WITH SOUND OF MUSIC
Edmonton audiences get the chance to slap another layer of love onto a cultural icon as The Citadel Theatre's production of The Sound of Music launches its four-week turn in the Shoctor.
Running until March 31, the 1959 musical by Rogers and Hammerstein comes alive — hills and all — with 11 musicians, a capable cast of 23 and a story that soars 65 years after it first captured Broadway, winning five Tony Awards.
While the 1965 film version starring Julie Andrews as Maria Rainer and Christopher Plummer as Captain Georg von Trapp has been a family favourite for generations, various revivals and touring versions of the stage production have burnished the musical's mystique. Set in the 1930s during the Anschluss in Austria, when Hitler's Germany annexed its European neighbour, the tale celebrates perseverance and principles. But the power of music to uplift and inspire is at the core of the narrative, with tunes that melt like honey in the heart. So long as the Captain and Maria don't trip during their fabled folk dance and land directly in the orchestra pit, audiences will be satisfied.
So it is with the Citadel's version of the show, a co-production with the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre featuring a well-balanced cast from both cities, including two winsome teams of children in each community playing the seven von Trapp youngsters. While it's impossible not to compare the movie and the stage production — it's a fun trivia game at intermission — to see the show live is to be charmed over and over again.
Directed by Rachel Peake (familiar to Citadel audiences as director of 9 to 5: The Musical and The Garneau Block), the musical opens with a meditative Preludium by eight nuns of Nonnberg Abbey, where Maria (Priya Narine) is a rebellious novice who struggles to fit in. The choral work sets a peaceful tone that will prove a contrast to the upcoming whirlwind that is Maria — “a flibbertigibbet! A willo'-the-wisp! A clown!”
Edmonton's own Narine plays Maria with conviction. Her voice is obviously solo quality, but it's her numerous songs with the lonely von Trapp children, whose mother has died, that seal her loving commitment to the role.
When Maria arrives to become a governess at the von Trapp mansion, the youngest von Trapp Gretl (Halle Leschert) flings herself in a projectile hug at Maria, who quickly proves the children's ardent advocate.
The Whiskers collection of children was on stage when I attended on the last night of previews and they combined their talented, youthful voices with not-quiteperfect- and- therefore- perfect choreography (Ainsley Hillyard) to create a believable and compelling troupe. Another Edmonton highlight is Kristi Hansen as Elsa Schraeder — the Captain's wealthy love interest — who strides confidently about the stage in a series of shimmering dresses (costumes by Jessica Oostergo). Christina Nguyen (on stage in both Edmonton and Winnipeg) as the eldest sibling, Liesl, is as wide-eyed and tremulous as only a 16-year-old in love can be.
Maria and Georg (the aptly named Vancouver actor Charlie Gallant) have good chemistry, although the progress of their love in the first act is jarringly rapid. Later, in an odd choice, once the two announce their attraction with a kiss, they move about the stage at a great distance from each other, even as the audience longs for them to snuggle up. Gallant is excellent as a navy leader set adrift by his wife's death. Even as he keeps his children in line with a whistle, we sense his vulnerability, and later, his deep sadness when his refusal to accept the Nazi perspective means the family must flee the country, escaping across the Alps to Switzerland.
But the show-stopper of the evening is Lara Ciekiewicz, a Winnipeg opera singer, who plays the Mother Abbess with a maternal practicality and a tender touch. Her soaring rendition of Climb Every Mountain — the show's last song and very soul — went directly into my chest cavity, a stirring accompaniment as the von Trapp family makes its moving and creative exit from the theatre.