In 1836 a production of 'Ion' by the Greek writer Euripides, though probably in the form of the Robert Potter translation of 1781, was produced at the Covent Garden Theatre, London.
Ion is the tale of the man who would rise to the throne of Athens and create the Ionian race/tribe and like many heroes of Greek myth and legend is the son of a god. His father is Apollo who rapes a young mortal woman, named Creusa, who ends up giving birth to the aforementioned hero and because of the violent nature of his conception abandons him to the elements. Apollo asked his fellow god Hermes to save the infant Ion, who was then raised as an orphan at the Temple of Apollo. Fast forward about 15 years and Creusa comes back into Ion's life through her husband coming to Apollo to beg for a son. The story gets more complex and really I would recommend reading the synopsis at this link here.
On the 23rd of May 1883 the worlds first action film megastar was born, that man is of course Douglas Fairbanks Snr. Fairbanks Snr was born in Denver, Colorado USA and began performing at a young age. Douglas began in amateur theatre but soon moved onto doing summer stock at the Elitch Gardens Theatre in Denver, Colorado. The theatre was the first picturehouse in the western states of the USA, showing films from 1896 until its closing in 1991. Fairbanks bounced around various colleges and schools in his teenage years before finally moving to New York to make his Broadway debut in 1902. Over the next 13 years Fairbanks would make 18 appearances on the Broadway stage but in 1915 he moved his family to Hollywood to pursue a career in moving pictures. Signed to a contract with Triangle Pictures in 1915 and began working for the great DW Griffiths. Griffiths was not enthusiastic about Fairbanks so in 1916 he joined Paramount and began producing films that made him immensly popular, by 1918 he was the top box office draw in the cinemas. After World War 1 Fairbanks's career sky rocketed as he made swashbuckler after swashbuckler and carved himself out as a Hollywood legend with his energetic and expensive productions. Fairbanks had changed the pace of films and was the true innovator of action films and sequences. By the end of the 20s and the beginning of the sound era in cinema Fairbanks found his passion for film fading, he did however prove himself to be a very able 'Talkie' actor and made his final performance in the film 'The Private Life of Don Juan' in 1934. In 1939 Fairbanks passed away from a heart attack brought on by excessive exercise.
Ok so just finished watching Montenegro try and get into the Eurovision Finals, watch it on Saturday, and it just made me think about those well known musical theatre stars/legends who have tried to win the Eurovision song contest. The one that really sticks into my mind is Colm Wilkinson, Jean Valjean himself, who in 1978 represented Ireland and came 5th with his song 'Born to Sing'....
Barnum is a musical based on the life of the great American impresario and showman P.T Barnum. It debuted on the Broadway stage in 1980 and went on to be nominated for 10 Tony awards, it won 3. The show starred Jim Dale of 'Carry On' fame, if you are from the UK, or if you are from the USA you will know him for his huge work load on Broadway and of course for his audio recordings of the Harry Potter novels for which he has won two Grammy Awards. Playing the female lead was Glenn Close who is best known for winning three Tony awards and playing the intense bunny boiler in 'Fatal Attraction'. The show, on Broadway, mixed circus skills with traditional staples of musical theatre and Jim Dale apparently walked tightropes, rode unicycles, juggled and much much more during the first run. If an actor ever worked his socks off to win the Tony it is Jim Dale! Don't believe me? Look at his performance from the Tony awards, the second number in the video, no circus tricks but the energy he expends in this excellent song is infectious.
So it was a critical success... on Broadway. Following its run on the 'Great White Way' it went on tour and without the big spectacle that a Broadway production can afford it became obvious that the show was quite hollow.
I saw Barnum in the 1990s at the Pavillion Theatre, Worthing. I believe it was 1993 or it may have been 1994, I would have been 8 years old. I remembered it as soon as I heard the opening strains of the overture. The tour I saw starred Paul Nicholas as Barnum and he was electric in the role but the play was to me, as a child, rather dull.
Saying all that, listening to the soundtrack is wonderful. It is a slice of classic Broadway withbombastic music, colourful melodies and the best of good old fashioned American style musical theatre. Some of the tunes can seem dated but this is because it is a period piece and as such is pretty timeless which is something I cannot say for the majority of Lord Lloyd Webbers musicals. I highly recommend this soundtrack on the strength of Jim Dale's charismatic and enigmatic performance. Follow the Band is amazing as a bonus track and the whole album sounds perfect for something which is now 32 years old. I have not listened to the West End version of the play soundtrack, starring Michael Crawford, but will be reviewing it at a later date. That production, produced at the London Palladium, seems to be a carbon copy of the Broadway production barring the performers of the show.
So seek out this wonderful soundtrack... and in the meantime thanks to the Comedy Theatre, Melbourne why don't we all 'Come Follow The Band'...
On the 28th of May 1852 the Victorian and Edwardian era actor Lottie Venne was born. Miss Venne made her stage debut in 1867, at the age of 15, in a burlesque called 'A Dream in Venice' by T W Robertson at the Gallery of Illustration a semi professional theatre space. Venne would cut her teeth as a performer with two years of provincial touring before returning to the London stage in 1870. Lottie would go on to carry on her career in Victorian burlesques, essentially spoof performances of Operas and Ballets, working in the odd play at theatres such as The Alhambra, The Court, The Haymarket and in 1874 she joined the company at The Strand theatre. With the death of Victorian Burlesque in the 1880s Lottie, who had made her name in that genre, quickly bounced back by getting stuck into the emerging genre that would become known as Edwardian Musicals. The Edwardian Musical Comedy took ideas from the popular burlesques, the opera's of the Savoy, the catchy songs of Music Hall and the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan but presented them in a contemporary and family friendly way. The genre was hugely popular and spawned the most popular musical of the early 20th century with 'Chu Chin Chow' which opened in 1916 and ran for 5 years, it held onto its record for longest running show until 'Salad Days' opened in 1954. Without the genre it can be argued that the American musical would never have truly taken off as the Father of American Musicals, George M Cohan, took the ideas developed here and changed Broadway forever. However its time to get back to Lottie, she worked hard in the new genre and gained even more success. Her fame continued to grow and when she reached retirement age she still continued working just as hard but was so well respected that in 1925 a Jubilee super matinee was put on in honour of her career. Her last performance was in 1927 and she sadly passed away in 1928 aged 76, obviously unforgettable her obituaries referred to how well loved she was by the theatre audiences.
(HRH Queen Henrietta Maria Stuart 1609-1669, wife of King Charles I)
Those of you who read my blog entries on the history of Theatre will already know that I use a certain book as my source for the 'This day in Theatrical History' posts. That book is 'Who's Who in the Theatre' the 1947 edition, you may also remember me referring to how this means that sometimes its information for said day is incorrect or since its publishing new historical evidence has come to light. It seems that this has happened again as I started my research about the first Female Actor to grace a stage in England and found evidence that I was nearly 30 years off in my information! I should start with what the book claims.
The book claims that on the 21st of May 1656 a Mrs Coleman played a part in Davenants Opera 'Siege of Rhodes' in front of a paying audience at Rutland House. This was in the 1940s believed to be the first performance by a female actor but it is incorrect. Mrs Coleman was one of the first and was without doubt the first in a resurgence of women on the English stage but she was not the first recorded professional performer. Mrs Coleman incidentally did continue her performing career for a while longer in productions of 'Siege of Rhodes' but she was soon replaced by a contemporary named Mary Betterton who was considered much better than her predecessor because unlike Mrs Coleman she was not a 'poor actress'.
So now knowing that, we must ask ourselves, who were the first female performers on the stage? Now for that we have to thank HRH Queen Henrietta Maria of England, pictured above, who engaged a French company to perform in England in... 1629. Yes in 1629, less than 15 years after the death of Shakespeare, we have the first records of female actors. They were engaged by the Queen to perform at Blackfriars Playhouse and they caused a massive uproar and despite trying their luck at the Fortune Theatre and the Red Bull Theatre they were harried off the stage. At the time it was seen as unthinkable and scandalous to see a Woman on the stage, in a time of rising Puritanism it was in many ways a dangerous step. The Queen was already unpopular for being French and also a Catholic, a factor which helped the Puritans in their quest to execute her husband King Charles I, so her choice of entertainments probably suffered due to her lack of popularity and reputation.
We now know that it was a failure in 1629 but what changed in 25 years? Well people had seen the women at Blackfriars and whilst they had rallied against it before they knew it worked better than watching boys playing girls. By the time the 1650s came around the Puritans were ruling the UK but the backlash against the rules they imposed against entertainment, especially by those who had been part of the Royal Court before the Civil Wars, had begun. Within four years the Monarchy would be back on the throne and the private theatres would be closed as the public ones would soon be reopened. In fact in 1662 the 'Merry Monarch' Charles II would make a decree that all female parts in plays must be played by women. So finally women were allowed on the stage and they had a Royal endorsement. It wasn't over though for equal rights in the theatre as female actors would continue to fight for over 300 years to be treated as respectable members of society for choosing the stage as their trade... but thats a tale for another day.
This evening I watched a wonderful film starring the world's most famous actor, Shahrukh Khan, and found myself laughing, crying and dancing in my seat for nearly 3 hours straight. That film is 'Om Shanti Om' and it is the single most successful Hindi film to ever be released, it has grossed over $37.9 million worldwide since its release and has made millions more off of its dvd and television rights. It is a blockbuster film with a stellar cast and I would say it is probably the Hindi equivalent of a summer box office action movie except a thousand times more entertaining.
I should say right now that I know little about the Bollywood/Hindi film industry and have only watched a handful of the thousands upon thousands of films that have been made in India. However LibraryGirl is mad for them and introduced me to them through an epic called 'Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham' which also starred Sharukh Khan.
I really enjoyed this film from start to end which I found surprising as it was 2 hours and 40 minutes long. I have had trouble before watching films that long and keeping engaged but with 'Om Shanti Om' the story was so good my focus was only on the film. The performances in the film were excellent, Khan played the hero in the first half of the film with a comedic flair but his clownish behaviour didn't stand in the way of his powerful performance as the protagonist of the piece. The debuting Deepika Padukone was beautiful, sweet and in every way what you would expect of a heroine in a film. As the evil producer, Arjun Rampal was excellent with his mannerisms and delivery of lines appearing cold and sleazy. The supporting cast to these three were also phenomenal, like Hollywood, Bollywood tends to be star driven but the actual films seem more like ensemble pieces. There is no doubting that Khan was the main character because of his top billing but every other actor fills a spot in the film that is justified and is given the space and opportunity to make their role mean something. I should mention that there are over 30 cameos from the top stars of Bollywood in this movie due to it being a film set in the industry and I think my favourite cameo has to be Abhishek Bachchan in the Movie Awards Show scene, he plays it so beautifully and with such timing that even though he only gets a couple of minutes of screen time you really get to see how good an actor he is.
The films story is a fantastical adventure spanning 30 years and is in many ways a spoof of and homage to Bollywood of the past and the present but on a more global scale it spoofs film from all over the world. There are references to Citizen Kane and Khan reciting 'Gone with the Wind' and numerous other gems hidden away in this glorious film. I won't go into the plot as I think everyone should see this film and I run the risk of spoiling too much. It all looks wonderful and colourful, it is amazing how bright the colours are but they are never garish they always seem warm. My favourite thing about this film though has to be the musical numbers. Bollywood is known for its great musical sequences and this film has many amazing ones. Whilst the penultimate showdown is a song which is dramatic and wonderful in its composition and the song 'Dard-E-Disco' is funny in both lyrics and sequence. My favourite has to be the title song 'Om Shanti Om' in the post awards show party scene which has many Bollywood legends singing and dancing. It looks like a party and it feels like they all had great fun putting the scene together. You can check out that video below.
Overall I would give 'Om Shanti Om' a 4.5 out of 5. I rarely give reviews that high but this film deserved it. The story... thrilling! The acting... superb! The sets and costumes were phenomenal and the musical segments were fabulous. A real treat for the eyes and ears, I hope to pick this up on blu-ray in the not too distant future as we watched it on lovefilm and whilst it did stream well I have a feeling we did not get the best sound and picture experience... plus I really want to watch it again!
