Thursday, May 5, 2011

the play's the thing


Bye-Bye, Birdie

I know the space,
I know many of the actors, singers, dancers, crew, musicians,
I lived the time of the story,
and still this show is new and fresh and joyous,

every moment each on stage seems to open himself, herself,
so that through each flows an exuberance
that wakens the most tired of us here this mid-week evening,

faces, bodies, voices dance,
characters are real, even in caricature,
so that relationship is real, too,
and a story pulls us along,

and we marvel at virtuosity
in the collective ensemble
as near 3 dozen make a whole that works to thrill us with sound and sight,
in the individuality
of a lead who channels who an Elvis could be
in a time when convention could also rule,
enough so that a parent could rail against even the word “puberty,”
of a lead whose comic touch as a mother who can’t and won’t let go
pulls laughs from me in my sheer joy at her comic genius,
of two leads who take the whole play to really find each other,
of two leads pinned and trying to hold to each other
as time works to wrench them asunder,

around me parents and friends and peers
mirror the same joy they watch,
I laugh, I applaud, I murmur congratulations,

mostly I feel rightness as each who creates the show creates,
and it is right,
and it is whole,

and I hope that all who create this show
joy in the success wrought through each performance.

by Henry H. Walker
May 4, ’11

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