Word: magnolia
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Just six weeks ago, in the middle of the night, a drunken and disturbed man crashed a single-engine Cessna into the White House lawn, below the President's bedroom. I was pretty impressed, until I heard that instead of the bedroom he hit a magnolia tree. And, even more embarassing, the President and First Family were sleeping across the street at Blair House...
...early casualties, the chorus Mis'ry's Comin' Aroun', a plaintive lament that acts as a kind of fate motive throughout the show (it is heard in the orchestra, for example, when the ne'er-do-well gambler Gaylord Ravenal first catches sight of the sweet, ingenuous Magnolia). Another addition is the charmingly coy duet, I Have the Room Above Her, first heard in the 1936 film version and much the best of Kern's second thoughts...
...most interesting decision concerns Why Do I Love You? Originally written as a duet for Ravenal and Magnolia in a scene that opens the second act, the song is here given instead to the carping old New England biddy Parthy, who croons it to her newborn grandchild. At a single stroke, Parthy is suddenly humanized, and we see in her the tender side that must have attracted her husband, the skipper Cap'n Andy, in the first place. As Parthy, Elaine Stritch is one of the production's great strengths. She has no voice to speak of at this stage...
...this version of Show Boat does ring with excellent voices nevertheless: Mark Jacoby's charming but feckless Ravenal, Rebecca Luker's steely Magnolia, Gretha Boston's ebullient Queenie and Lonette McKee's glorious Julie. (As Joe, Michel Bell sports an impressive basso profundo, but spoils Ol' Man River with a needlessly mannered performance.) Still, it is a relative nonsinger, John McMartin as Cap'n Andy, who is the surprising hit of the show: his desperate reenactment of the interrupted play-within-a-play, The Parson's Bride, is a comic highlight that stays in the mind...
Just before dawn on Monday, Sept. 12, a small red-and-white Cessna crash- landed on the White House lawn, ripped through a venerable magnolia tree planted by President Andrew Jackson and smashed into the side of the White House, just under the Clintons' bedroom. Fortunately, the First Family was spending the night across Pennsylvania Avenue at Blair House. The crash raised questions about White House security and why air-traffic controllers at National Airport did not notice the tiny plane on their radar screens. Noting that the pilot had a history of depression and substance abuse, investigators suggested...