SOUND OF MUSIC : the PLAY

I had the chance last night to watch the stage presentation of THE SOUND OF MUSIC last night at the Princess of Wales Theatre here in Toronto. With me are my two grandaughters who share my passion for movies, music and mmmmm..good food!


We arrived at King street around 6:00 pm, the play would start at 7:30. Eventually, Emma said : " I am hungry". The two has just came out of school when their Mom picked them up. There was a Swiss Chalet near the theatre, but near Swiss Chalet was a Korean restaurant. 3 against one, they voted for the Korean restaurant. The food was good, ( Teriyaki shrimp dinner, Teriyaki chicken, then softcrab tereyaki.) When the food arrived, we barely had enough time to eat them before entering the theater gates which would close 5 minutes after the overture would start.

The play. Well, if one has seen the movie the play seems to be a washed out version. Sooner or later, both versions would be compared with each other. Some songs ( and scenes ) were deleted from this stage version which irked me slightly. And some songs from the movie were used in the play . The PA system was not so loud.

On the other hand, the stage manager did a few tricks which would really elicit a soft WOW from the audience ( which comprised of many children ). They could transform a dark abbey into a gorgeous mansion in just a few seconds. The stage background also rotated not only a vertical axis but also on a horizontal one. One has to see the play in order to visualize better what I am writing about.

Somehow, I believe the version of this play which I saw in St. Paul College in Manila years before the movie came out was much better than the one I saw last night. In the St. Paul College version, Capt. von Trapp was played by Vic Silayan, a seasoned Filipino movie star, and Maria by June Keithley.

The deleted scene was the song EDELWEISS which was sung in the von Trapp living room. Vic Silayan did it with a guitar in fron of the von Trapp children, Christopher Plummer did it in the movie version, also strumming a guitar. But in the play last night, the Captain sung it only once ( during the concert only ) sans a guitar. It is one of the important key scenes in the play. I consider it a travesty!.

The St. Paul version was directed by Fr. James Rueter, SVD. St. Paul College Auditorium was bigger in size than the Princess of Wales. Vic and June were a far superior pair, in singing and acting than the ones we saw last night.

One of the producers of the Princess of Wales version was Andrew Lloyd Webber, the most popular and opulent stage producer now a days. I have already seen on stage his other works: CATS, PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT. This stage version of SOUND OF MUSIC ( originally written by Rodgers and Hammerstein ) could not gain a foothold beside them...