Last week the Drama, Music and English students of the Ridge attended a performance of The Sound of Music in Stratford. The show was playing as one of the productions in the Stratford Festival, which is well known for it's productions of all of Shakespeare's works.
Before the show, students had the fantastic opportunity to take part in a tour of the Stratford costume and set wearhouse. The warehouse was filled with shelves upon shelves of magnificent costumes from almost every era. The warehouse held everything from furniture, to fake corpses all of which have been used in notable Stratford productions.
The matinee showing of The Sound of Music took place at the Festival Theatre. The stars of the show included, Stephanie Rothenberg as Maria, Ben Carlson as Captain von Trapp. The von Trapp children were fantastically played by: Zoe Brown (Gretl), Sarah DaSilva (Marta), Alec Dahmer (Kurt), Effie Honeywell (Louisa), Sean Dolan (Friedrich), and Alexandra Herzog (Leisel).
The Sound Of Music is a production that is familiar to almost everyone, the lovable, vivacious Maria, leaves her life at the Abbey (where she is training to become a Nun) to become a governess for the motherless von Trapp family, whose father, Captain von Trapp is as strict as he is absent from his seven children's lives. Maria and the Captain fall in love despite his pending engagement and her devotion to the Abbey. Eventually they marry, but their story is not over. Austria is taken over by the Nazis, and the von Trapps are targeted due to Captain von Trapp’s resistance against them. The show ends as the family escapes into the Swiss Alps, alive with the sound of music.
The show took place on a single, yet ever-changing set. Despite the abundance of different settings in the play, set designer, Michael Gianfrancesco created a perfectly versatile set that takes the audience from the Abbey, to the von Trapp’s, to the Nazi-invested concert stage. Because of this, there were few blackouts. Instead we watched a dancing carousel of actors change the scene right before our very eyes. Rather than being distracting, the effect was that the show had a flow that was unperturbed by set changes and scenes followed each other in swift succession.
The lighting was superb. Though it’s an easily ignored facet of a production, lighting designer, Michael Walton truly brought the set to life with an almost palpable ambiance through his cleverly-placed shadows and interesting illuminations. This success was not ignored by the audience, and when the actors turned to address the sound and light box, the theatre filled with resounding applause.
The driving force of the production was definitely the vocals. Stephanie Rothenberg’s clear and unwavering voice truly stole the show. Saying this, the entire cast had strong vocal prowess, most notably the Mother Abbess, played by Anita Krause. All of the crowd’s favourites such as “My favourite things”, “The Lonely Goatherd”, and “Do-Re-Mi” were done justice. All of the exceptional vocals were supported by Richard Rodgers music performed beautifully by the orchestra under the direction of the conductor, Laura Burton.
The director, Donna Feore brought to life the cast of characters as never before. Static minor characters Sister Margaretta (played by Glynis Ranney), Frau Schmidt (played by Barbara Fulton), Franz (played by Ian Simpson), Elsa Schraeder (played by Robin Evan Willis), turned into interesting and dynamic personalities which gave the story more depth, and the production a keen flair.
In all, the show can be summed up by the standing ovation the crowd gave the cast as they performed their encore of “So Long, Farewell”. A truly enjoyable performance of an extremely sentimental musical.
Article by: Alessia Collia
Photos by: Jennifer Kong
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