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Originally built as a vaudeville and silent movie house in 1925, the
Majestic has been restored, renovated and reinvented as the centerpiece of a
performing arts center just half a block from the central square of historic
Gettysburg. The center now offers movies in two new small art-movie houses
and art exhibits in a small gallery. There is a cafe named for a frequent
visitor of the 1950s, Mamie Eisenhower, who attended movies with her husband,
President Eisenhower, and often visiting dignitaries. The grand theater
itself has been both modernized and restored, offering all the technology
needed for modern stage shows. Total seating
is 830 with a 615-seat main floor and a 215-seat balcony.
Touring productions from
one-man shows to comedy troupes and country music acts to operas
will be offered during a fall-to-spring season, while the summer, at least
for 2006, has been devoted to one show - a show the operators hope will
become a summer tradition packing in the tourists who flock to the nearby
battlefield in search of a connection to America's "defining moment" - the
Civil War - that came to such a dramatic and tragic peak on the fields outside
of town. The show hopes to tap into just that search.
Here is our review of the production:
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This musical is a slightly re-worked and
streamlined version of Frank Wildhorn's musical The Civil War. When
it opened in 1999, Widhorn became one of the few modern American composers
to have three new musicals playing at the same time on Broadway. His first
was the pop-opera Jekyll & Hyde which ran for over three years. The
second was a pop-operetta, The Scarlet Pimpernel, which ran for over
two years. Unfortunately, the third time wasn't a charm and his
pop-oratorio, The Civil War, failed to find an audience. It closed in
about two months. The failure reflected more on the marketing of the show
than on its artistic merit. Marketed as "The Mew Musical" with a sub-title
of "Our Story in Song" it drew audiences expecting something akin to Gone
With The Wind with songs. These audiences, and many Broadway critics,
were confused by its new approach to a stage work. A subsequent national
tour of a re-staged version visited Wolf Trap in 2000. Now a new director
takes a crack at finding the key to drawing audiences into the work, and a
new marketing team tries to find a way to get the word out to the very
people who will respond to the show's strengths. They have found the right
place - it feels much more at home in one of the Civil War's iconic
locations. The material remains strong and the cast they have assembled,
including two of the original stars of the show on Broadway, delivers a
string of stirring performances.
Storyline: A song cycle on a theme, the show consists of songs touching on
the legacy that our national psyche inherits from the events of the 1860s.
These include duty, honor, patriotism, love, family, separation, fear,
racism, the longing for freedom and the values of equality and democracy.
Twenty songs include glimpses of the lives, loves, hopes and fears of
soldiers in blue and gray,
nurses in Civil War hospitals,
white farm families, free and enslaved African-Americans and people and who bought
and sold their fellow men.
Wildhorn's music bridges
the chasm between the 1860s and the present with a style more country-ish
and closer in structure to early American song than much of his other work,
but with his trademark accessibility of melody and strong rhythmic patterns.
The lyrics were devised and developed out of source material of the time.
They are affecting not so much because of overwhelming intrinsic artistic
merit - truth to tell some are banal and predictable - but because of
their links to the myths and icons of our common heritage. Whether the
subject be homesickness, fear of battle, desire for a loved one, yearning
for freedom or craving a quick buck, they push readily accessible buttons in
our common consciousness. The observations made on these familiar themes are
not profound. They are not new. Rather, they are fundamental and they bear
revisiting from time to time.
Three leading performances
anchor the entire piece. Michael Lanning reprises his performance from
Broadway as a war weary wearer of blue, and Daniel Cooney, fresh from
Signature Theatre's production of
Nevermore,
has joined the cast as Lanning's opposite who sings about his "Old Grey Coat." Keith Byron Kirk continues
to be thrillingly intelligent as he was originally on Broadway as Frederick
Douglass, the former slave, who, as he tells in the introduction to the
inspiring "Freedom's Child," "stole this head, these hands, this body from
my master and ran off with them." The other veteran of the original
Broadway production is Bart Shatto, who takes a larger role here than he did
in New York. Here he teams with Jessica Dillan as a couple separated by the
tragedy of war with two touching song/scenes, one in the first act as he
departs for service ("If I Should Loose My Way") and another in the second as he writes his final goodbye
in a letter that arrives at their farm after the news of his death ("Sarah"
and "The Honor of Your Name".)
New to the project are
young performers of note. Aaron LaVigne tears at the heart with "Tell My
Father," Allyson Daniel and Bryan Guffey lift the roof on "If Prayin' Were
Horses" after a slave sale separates them, while Tracee Perrin, Allyson
Daniel and the aforementioned Jessica Dillan sing searingly of their
thoughts after seeing that Abraham Lincoln is working late as evidenced by the "Candle
in the Window" at the White House. Here, instead of a 14 member orchestra
they have a band of 6, but they lay down a solid beat and provide great
support using new orchestrations by Kim Scharnberg (who did the Broadway
originals). Michael Clark (Allegro
at Signature) has done new and very effective projections which bring Kevin
Rigdon's spare set to life along with Howell Binkley's sharp lighting design
with its many motorized, computer operated lighting instruments. Nothing in
the production reminds you of the theme park show you might suspect was
being offered as a tourist destination. This is the real thing.
Music by Frank Wildhorn.
Lyrics and book by Frank Wildhorn, Gregory Boyd and Jack Murphy. Directed by
Vincent Marini. Musical staging by Sharon Halley. Musical direction by Galen
Butler. Vocal direction by Dave Clemmons. Orchestrations by Kim Scharnberg.
Design: Kevin Rigdon (set) Michael Clark (projections) Tina Marie Green-Heinze
(costumes) Howell Binkley (lights) Nick Kourtides (sound). Cast: Steve
Barcus, Dustin Brayley, Josh Breckenridge, Daniel Cooney, Allyson Daniel, Jessica Dillan,
Philip Drennen, Ryan Dunn, Bryan Guffey, Keith Byron Kirk, Michael
Lanning, Aaron LaVigne, Michael McKinsey, Tracee Perrin, Troy
Scarborough, Bart Shatto, Tad Wilson. |
