my name is victoriawinters... here is a blow by blow scene and musical review of david selby's performance of mame at the thousand oaks civic art plaza produced by the cabrillo music theatre. mame was written by jerry herman, the same composer and lyricist who gave us hello dolly. the book was by jerome lawrence and robert e. lee. the director/choreographer was jon engstrom.
prof stokes, myself and two other members of the dark shadows so. california fan club were at the matinee on saturday, november 9.
selby's first entrance did not occur until scene 8, act 1 of the musical. needless to say, that i was just dying to see his entrance and was hoping he'd pop up before the end of act 1.
scene 8 takes place in the salon pour messieurs. mame has lost all her income during the stock crash of 1928 and is now forced to work her latest odd job as a manicurist in a salon for men. the scene opens with david playing beauregard jackson pickett burnside (a rich plantation owner from georgia) attired in the traditional southern white suit for gentlemen in the barber chair being attended to by various other employees. it is then decided that mame has to do his manicure because all the other ones are busy with other customers. the managers want to please this southern gentlemen since he appears to have lots of money. david's part here is confined to speaking. his speaking voice oozes with southern gentility.
mame can't trim fingernails without slicing off the hand that comes with them and that includes beauregard's. however, beauregard has taken a liking to auntie mame and doesn't mind in the least bit. but too late, the managers find out and mame is once again looking for employment elsewhere.
scene 9 takes place in mame's apartment. it's almost christmas and the apartment is thread bare from having to sell off everything. mame gives her staff and nephew their presents early because well "we need a little christmas." a knock at the door. it's beauregard (still attired in the same suit). yea he's back on the stage. he invites mame and company to dinner since he feels bad for mame having lost her job on his account. david's comic timing was impeccable. reprise "we need a little christmas" with david joining the rest of the cast in song. exit stage right.
scene 10 takes place on beauregard's estate, peckerwood. beau's family have assembled to meet his new flame that yankee, mame. he introduces mame to the various family members. beau's alleged "betrothed" since second grade plays some tricks on mame. they put her up to riding a horse in the fox hunt. mame says she will ride the horse side saddle. the family takes advantage of mame's horse naivete and mother burnside picks the wildest horse on the estate, lightnin'rod, claiming it to be a gentle horse. enter beauregard, (now in a riding outfit - delicious) who is impressed with her gumption, and off they go to the hunt. the family members not in the hunt lay in wait making commentary and wanting her to fall off the horse. well she doesn't. all come back from the hunt and re-enters yours truly. so impressed is he with mame riding that wild stallion that down on one knee he goes (oh i luved that part and dreamed it was me) he asks mame to marry her. (don't tell the hubby, it's our secret ok.)
now darlings the BIG david musical number. he starts singing and dancing all by himself....
"you coax the blues right out of the horn, mame
you charm the husk right off of the corn, mame
you've got the banjos strummin' and pluckin' out a tune to beat the band.
the whole plantation hummin' since you brought dixie back to dixie land.
you make the cotton easy to pick, mame
you give my old mint julip a kick mame, etc, etc. "
david sings with a chocolate toned bass-baritone voice. in comparing it to his intoning shadows of the night, which i heard directly before the performance, his dulcet voice has aged and deepened over time like a fine red wine one savors slowly. he could sing and dance at the same time and not loose pitch which is really difficult to do. for someone who has not had any musical theatre credits since the early ¢â‚¬Ëœ60s, he seemed quite at ease and not at all awkward with dancing and singing or out of step with the others. he looked like he had a great time performing this show. this role of the southern gentlemen seemed tailor made for him.
now the end of act 1 is over. other then one tiny speaking scene in act 2, scene 1 (where he is wearing a safari outfit) and joining the group for the closing number/curtain call (now he is wearing a yummy dark men's suit) with the group, this is all we see of david. an all too brief appearance to be sure. i was hoping during the last reprise at the end that the rest of the cast would remain tacet for 10-12 bars or so and let him have another solo part. lol. well that was not to be my wish.
david has some mighty singing, dancing, and comic talent that has been hiding under a bushel basket somewhere and has now finally seen the light of day. i can't wait for more!
as for the other singers/actors, a brief word about them. amanda mcbroom, played mame. we know her best from her songwriting as composer of the song, the rose, from the movie of the same name. i liked her voice overall but her mid-range tended to fall out. she was so busy belting in her chest voice that when she was switching to go up in the range or back down it would hit the break in the mid-range and cut out and not match the other ends. the break is a naturally occurring part of the voice between the two muscles of the vocal chords which produce high and low tones. while this is real technical jargon, it disturbed me that she had not worked on this. 101 of voice lessons. spent a lot of money on mine working very hard to blend the ranges together and not make it real obvious going over the break. perhaps her cabaret singing doesn't require this, but musical theatre does with it's greater demands on vocal range and the fact you are constantly going up and down in range. hopefully, she will have an opportunity to work on this in the future and not have it be so glaring. her comic acting and dancing were otherwise divine. her best sounding number was, "if he walked into my life" in act two.
the younger and older nephew, patrick dennis were played by non-union actors. the younger was played by colt beyer-johnson with a lovely male soprano who was very polished and the older patrick was played by corey greenan, a tenor who has some great beginnings. i hoping to see these two in some other productions. mame's friend, vera charles was played by joy classen, the third union actor. i didn't care for her singing voice but she was the comic relief. her character was supposed to be gruff and her voice was appropriate to the part.
the company, other then the three leads, were all played by "amateur" actors. translation, not paid much, if at all, and non-union. the dancing and singing of the company was together and spirited. it looked really well rehearsed. the mostly live orchestra was conducted competently by music director, ilana eden. they were a bit out of tune during the overture but it was better later on or at least didn't bother me because i was there to see david. i say mostly live in that i distinctly heard a harp which always had this popping noise over the speakers when it chimed in. in double checking my program, there was no credit for a harpist hence my thought that they supplemented with partial tape which is not at all uncommon in smaller productions. the sets were not much and mostly consisted of furniture and painted curtain backdrops which you didn't really care one way or another about once the show got going strong. saw no technical errors with lighting or set changes. no technical persons were seen walking on the set at the inappropriate time. the production was timed very well and i didn't notice that it lasted for three hours.
i asked david after the show if he had plans to appear in other musicals in the future. suzy stokey, one of the associate producers, and he both chimed in that discussions are in works but no plans yet made. as suzy said, she's hooked him now only a matter of reeling him in.
afterwards, david put his arm around me at least two times and i was simply in heaven. he seemed genuinely glad we came back to see him and would drive far distances to do so. he told us to drive safely back in the rain. oh i was simply so giddy with glee. (again, don't tell the husband lol... he'll never let me go again...) we got these cool back stage passes with his picture on them and the words, "david selby fan club, mame nov 2002." i'm thinking of wearing mine at the next fest, i luv it so much lol. he was out of costume and make-up but his hair was colored. it almost looked red but i guess was brown. he had his eyebrows done too. i didn't really like the color on him. i think he looks so much better as tall, dark and handsome. i was watching some of the 1897 episodes and noticed his eyes used to be a darker blue or perhaps that was tv then. they are really light blue now.
he was really nice to our group and he wanted to know all of our names. he even called us by our names when he said good-bye. we got several autographs and photos with him. even though he was visiting with other people he seemed to know, he didn't ignore us in favor of them. he was soooo nice.
now i wanted to play a little game and cast him in his next musical. my top three choices are in order of choice:
1. the music man - as the music man himself. i think this is such a perfect fit for him in terms of vocal range and comic talents. i hear him "singing marian the librarian", "there's trouble in river city" and "76 trombones". plus i luv a man in uniform. i looked up who played beau in the lucille ball movie version and it was none other then robert preston the very same movie music man.
2. my fair lady - as professor higgins. while this part is not usually sung, we know from our experience darlings that the man can speak with a song and speak all so well. but i wanted to hear more singing first so this was choice two.
3. camelot - as king arthur. same reasons as #2.
i thought of a wish list of at least 12 altogether but would like to leave room for your suggestions too and then i'll pipe the rest of mine at the end of your posts. only rule is it must fit david's voice type of bass-baritone with a reminder that most lead parts in music theatre plays are for tenors. you can even write your own musical, just let us know the plot and what songs david will do. i'm looking forward to this game, it should be grand fun.
the pictures of our little group with david is being mailed to the developer and i shall post them in a scrap book page on the dark shadows so. california fan club home page. i should get them in about a week or so. i'll let you all know when they are available for viewing by posting the url.
