The Hills Are Alive

Yesterday, I watched my high school's production of The Sound of Music. It was closing night, but I had also attended the opening night performance. So, I guess I have a more in-depth perspective to comment on the musical with. I thought that both performances were well done, but the closing night performance was a bit better than the other even with all the technical problems. During both performances there were many microphone issues. At times the audience couldn't even hear some of the main characters. Despite the technical problems, I felt that the cast dealt them with them very well and continued on with the performance as if it was purposely planned that way. I felt that the chemistry among the actors definitely picked up on closing night. Every note, every word was just sent out to the audience without any arrogance or pretension. The students playing the roles of the Mother Abbess and Maria had such charisma that when they came to sing together, it honestly felt as though we were watching a professional performance. The level of professionalism from everyone in the cast, I thought, gained the respect of the audience. The Sound of Music is just one of those type of plays that have persisted so widely in our culture that it has become a staple of one's cultural literacy. I'm sure many audience members came into the performance with an already preconceived idea of how everything would proceed an so on. I feel this is the wrong way to approach a play, even one that we may know very well, because in a sense you would be setting yourself up for a let-down. Our expectations are of course always very high. I felt that our cast did not disappoint at all, if anything, the audience's love for The Sound of Music only improved their response to the show.