|
Everett Daily Herald Feb. 11, 2005 (excerpt) By Mike Murray |
|---|
|
"Singin' in the Rain": The forecast calls for rain Saturday night in Seattle. Count on it, as "Singin' in the Rain" opens at Seattle's 5th Avenue Theatre for a three-week run.
This is the stage version of what's considered the best movie musical of all time, the 1952 MGM film about Hollywood's rocky transition from silent films to talking pictures. The movie has the incomparable dancing of Gene Kelly as silent screen star Don Lockwood, the nasal-voiced perfection of Jean Hagen as Lina Lamont, his female counterpart, and a buoyant score including the title song. Kelly's "rain dance" to that song made movie history. The rain machine is primed for The 5th Avenue Theatre production, a co-production with theater companies in Sacramento and Houston and directed and choreographed here by Jamie Rocco. He is a veteran of many productions of "Singin' in the Rain" including a Japanese version presented in Tokyo. The technical challenges in translating the movie to live theater include that famous rain scene, Rocco said. The 5th Avenue is ready with two, 250-gallon tanks full of heated water (don't want to shock the actor) and a complex plumbing setup to keep the stage wet but the audience dry. "It's stage magic," Rocco said. "This production is spectacular, with so many 'wow' factors." The cast includes veterans of many national and Seattle productions, including Michael Gruber as Don Lockwood, Michael Arnold as his sidekick Cosmo, Christina Saffran Ashford as the ingenue Kathy Selden and Lisa Estridge as Lina Lamont. "'Singin' in the Rain' is so well-known and loved that it's part of our national conscious, just like 'The Wizard of Oz,'" Rocco said. "We can't possibly try to imitate these people, but we can understand what made them tick," Rocco said, "and celebrate our mutual affection and love for them."
|