Haines His Way

PAGE FOUR CONCERT....

DR Panni, there is another way that you can include a link here if it is too long.

Just highlight the link and click on the hyperlink icon (3rd from left on the bottom).  That will fix your problem.

I'm surprised and kind of sad that TD doesn't hear the evocation of time and place in Richard Rodgers' music to Oklahoma and Carousel.  Allow me to point out....

Many a New Day is a minuet, not a style of music used much after the Sooner period.  The hard shuffle heard in The Farmer and the Cowman, I Cain't Say No and All Or Nothing is something one only associates with the American wild west.  The "make up your mind, Laurie" section of Out of My Dreams is echt period music, and the clip-clop accompaniment of Surrey With the Fringe On Top takes one back to the era of horse-drawn transportation.

The first two chords of If I Loved You's refrain are the tonic and the tonic diminished.  This is a harmonic progression popular in 19th century music but rarely used in the 20th.  Blow High Blow Low sounds like an authentic whaling song, and the gentility of the chromatic lines in When the Children Are Asleep read as Victorian.

Having a feel for a time and place doesn't involve a slavish imitation of the actual music of what's being depicted.  One couldn't listen to actual B.C. Roman music for a full evening.  What Sondheim did in Forum's best songs played up the "low comedy" aspect of the evening.  One of the ideas behind Forum is to show how classical comedy isn't really all that different from what you'd find in burlesque or the Borscht Belt.  Everybody Ought To Have a Maid, Impossible and Comedy Tonight are all examples.

The song I most admire in Les Miserables, Castle on the Cloud, sounds very much like an old French folk song, Allons Gai Bergerers and, amongst the synthesized pop, I, for one, welcomed a touch of verissimilitude

Oh, no, Jennifer, I didn't mean to imply for a minute that AVENUE Q and MAMMA MIA had anything in common except for my own underwhelmed preconceptions of them. I didn't expect to enjoy AVENUE Q that much, and I was swept away how much it grabbed me and enchanted me with the world it created.

Now, as for MAMMA MIA, I'm glad I've seen it. It certainly was light, tuneful fluff. But I am not sure tomorrow that I'll remember much about it at all. I do remember that each of the three possible fathers were hunks in this production, and each sported a muscular, hairy chest in the final reprise in their spandex wardrobes. THAT was worth waiting for!

Free for all day question  (well, Noel and I already discussed this in chat, so don't answer, Noel):

What is the common denominator between Doris Day, Burt Bacharach and Hal David?
(personally, I didn't know this until tonight).

Now, as for MAMMA MIA...I do remember that each of the three possible fathers were hunks in this production, and each sported a muscular, hairy chest in the final reprise in their spandex wardrobes. THAT was worth waiting for!

They were wearing spandex, and you were looking at their CHESTS?  

I put the cast recording for Mama Mia on the player one day, before we moved east.  Der Brucer's comment was that he hadn't realized how derivitive ABBA was until that afternoon, with their constantly ripping off the sound of...ABBA!

We haven't listened to the score since.

Knock on Wood!  This is the in-focus version of the brochure picture, which hopefully will not put us into cinerama!!!

Knock on Wood!  This is the in-focus version of the brochure picture, which hopefully will not put us into cinerama!!!

Now, that's what I call a man!

(Ah! a PAJAMA GAME reference!  as well as another Doris Day reference!)

Fabbo foto, TCB!

td - And I win an all-expenses trip to where?
(It's Epstein)

Panni, it's a NO-expenses paid trip!  You could join me and another DR in NYC next weekend for a big, old-fashioned, tear-up-the-town Birthday Bash!
(and thanks.  I shan't modify my post to give everyone the "Huh?" factor).

And Richard KLINE's daughter, Colby, went to school with my DD when they were in Grade One. So when the famous writer (moi) met up with Richard Kline again after many years (at the Hollywood Collectors Showcase) he, of course, knew exactly who I was.
He said, "It's Rachel's mother!"

Or Calvin Klein.

On the subject of musicals:

On the subject of Country & Western:

Laterz.