SOUND OF MUSIC REVIEW: IMPORTED NOSTALGIA

By Wilhelmina S. Orozco 

What accounts for an outstanding musical production? Number one of course is the originality of the songs. Next is the acting, followed by musical performance of the actors, of the orchestra, and then lastly, over-all direction.

I had the chance to catch one of the last presentations of the Sound of Music at the Resorts World in Pasay City, and I got entertained. I had to suspend a lot of my criteria for a good musical production lest I would not get the benefits of that P700 ++ ticket.

Sure, the music, which I first heard while watching the film Sound of Music in the 60’s, threw me into nostalgia over the good old days when a lot of film musicals were still being done then, like Camelot and West Side Story. The songs were very familiar as I have been able to memorize some of them due to my repetitious playing of the LP (long playing pa noon, hindi cd’s) and of course, due to my joining choirs that had the songs in the play as part of the repertoire, like “Climb Every Mountain,” and “Edelweiss.”

The scenery of Vienna, the setting, was all there in great realism – the mountains, the greenery, the opulent courtyards of the aristocratic family. That was a feat really, transporting the audience to Vienna, no matter how vicarious.

Let me tell you the plot first, dear Readers. The setting is before the occupation of Vienna by the Nazis. Maria, a postulant is sent by the nuns from the convent to the house of Capt. Von Trapp to be the governess to his 7 children for a few months. She develops rapport with his kids to his consternation. He has reared them to a life of rigidity and formality and he now is appalled how Maria could turn them into jolly and happy singers.

Maria returns to the convent as she has begun to feel something more romantic towards him.

Meanwhile Von Trapp however proposes to another woman, Ella, played by Pinky Amador who visits him, together with Max, the uncle. Pinky has a fantastic voice, except that she did not pronounce her consonants much; hence I could not understand the lyrics at all. Max, the uncle, and she wander around the yard estimating how much worth Von Trapp’s property is.

However, the Nazis arrive and want Von Trapp to join the navy as his stint in it was exemplary in the past.

A ruse is created to make the Von Trapp family join a singing contest. The family sing together and Von Trapp sings a nationalistic song, “Edelweiss,” at the end.They win the contest but when they are called, they do not appear anymore. So the Nazis order their arrest.

But the family has retreated to the convent to hide from them. The Mother Superior , afraid of the safety of the convent, instead advices them to go up the mountains;  then the song, Climb Every Mountain becomes very apropos to the scene.

The story is not Filipino, but we could empathize with the topic – that of the invasion of the Nazis of what is otherwise a very quiet setting. It recalls to our mind the martial law days when the military really controlled the lives of the people.

Acting-wise, Maria, played by a woman with dyed blond hair ( the top of her head was brownish) sounded very much like Julie Andrews in every scene. On the other hand, the oher actors had different accents – Filipino, American English, and Germanic. However, the acting was very professional and engaging. You would not sleep at any part at all.

The orchestra was shown in between scenes on video projected on screen placed on the left and right sides of the stage. That was a good recognition of its role as an equal member of the production, so unlike the usual way, where the orchestra is placed in the pit, below the stage of hidden backstage.

The maid was okay but she had the tendency to overdo her scenes. It seemed as if she was exerting too much effort at being funny. In the beginning it was but later on, it became a bit too unrestrained, and no longer funny.

But as my understanding of any European drama tends to be rational, I was confounded by the very Filipino interpretation of John Joven’s role, that of the Captain Von Trapp. What is being Filipino but having those qualities of tender and nurturing bent despite the lines that would have required him to be more imposing and strict, as that scene with his kids.

Then Leo Martinez’s role was very Filipino in his attempt at making his character, that of uncle to the kids, comical. He did not exhibit that Germanic or Austrian qualities at all. Not even the roles of the German officers made me feel the restrictive atmosphere their presence should have made. They just appeared in the scene in Nazi uniform, and voila, with a few lines, should have induced the audience to be afraid of what could happen to the Von Trapp family. Yet, I did not feel that fear. What could have made those scenes more militaristic? Perhaps some sound effects?

What I don’t quite understand is how Von Trapp could break up with his girl friend, Ella, and in a matter of minutes, propose to Maria who had returned from the convent.

In such a short while, he had changed his mind and heart.  By the way, he had to break off with her because they did not see eye to eye on how to deal with the Germans. He refused to be a member of the Nazi navy whereas, Ella and Max egged him on to play with the music.

But then maybe in a war setting everything is possible.

Let me say something about the orchestra playing the music in between scenes. Again, the orchestra must have been taken in more by the romantic attachment between Von Trapp and Maria, rather than the over-all story setting in a war-torn country.

Each scene was full of drama – the kids and Maria playing with each other; Von Trapp and Ella kissing; Von Trapp and Maria kissing also.

However, towards the latter part of the play, I felt something amiss – originality of the whole production itself. It was a western play being presented and therefore, the similarity of the film with what was onstage became too apparent.

Lastly, I have been thinking, why couldn’t we present western musical as adaptations? It is difficult watching a play that is exerting effort at imitating how the westerners had presented it and the attempt is very obvious by the way lines were delivered in heavy. British accent by the leading actress. That’s it, she was the only one with that British accent whereas the others had their own entirely different from hers starting from her dialogues  with the Mother Superior until her meeting with Von Trapp. She spoke in a diction highly different from the Mother Superior. She sounded like a British pauperish girl talking to a nun schooled in English the Filipino way.

Anyway, if we would use adaptations instead of original scripts, many more people would come to watch the play, I suppose. Even songs, when translated into Pilipino, would become more meaningful to the audience and make them appreciate the significance of the theme of the play – that of love for human beings and for music towering over political matters.

This is nothing new/ Even the French, by the way, when presenting classics onstage, not only put them up in their language but also work it out so that it becomes a “French adaptation,” say of Fernando Garcia Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba which I had the chance to watch in 1981 in Paris.

Imported materials, though related to our lives in an indirect way and bring about nostalgia, could be rendered more significance if these were adapted into our own experiences and history as a people.