By Dottie Ashley

Post and Courier Reviewer

‘Anderson Illusions - A World Beyond Reality,’ a blend of magic, music and audience participation, seemed to be just what the large audience that nearly filled the Footlight Players’ 240 seats, wanted on Sunday afternoon. Families came to savor the talents of Russell Anderson, singer and illusionist, who made a very nervous bunny suddenly appear in an empty cage, and made you laugh at his frequent ad libs in this Piccolo Spoleto production.

Anderson, who lives in Elloree, about 70 miles up the road from Charleston, attracted friends and neighbors and family. At intermission they told of how the show’s star had made their town proud when he started singing as a child.

Although the largely down-home production failed to match the advance publicity promising ‘Las Vegas illusions,’ Anderson did succeed in executing several pretty astonishing magic tricks, especially when he made Allison West, one of his assistants, levitate and then disappear into a puff of smoke.

Inspired by the great master magician Houdini, he also placed another assistant Morgan Fanning, 16, in a box and made her disappear and re-appear. However, it would be best if the young magician cut back on the rope tricks, which were far too complex.

Striking a sort of Christian-oriented Vegas-style tone, Anderson filled the theater with his well-trained singing voice. He jump-started the show with a rendition of Jerry Lee Lewis’ ‘Great Balls of Fire,’ which included audience participation.

Finally, he left the audience with some sound advice: ‘There is magic all around you every day, if only you open your eyes to see it.’

The show will be repeated on Saturday.

By Jeff Johnson

Post and Courier Reviewer

Spoleto festival USA’s Tuesday concert combined the Westminster Choir, the Charleston Symphony Choir and the Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra: all under the direction of Joseph Flummerfelt. The program had been designed around the responses of Mozart, Brahms, and Verdi to spiritual crises.

Mozart’s ‘Coronation Mass’ is an early work written on commission and filled with lots of lovely music and a few moments of theatrical grandeur. Jennifer Zetlan and Mark Thomsen had a charming duet in the ‘Kyrie.’ They were joined by Barbara Rearick and Stephen Morscheck in a very jaunty quartet. In the final ‘Agnus Dei,’ Zetlan sweetly sang an extended solo, which would have graced the score of ‘The Marriage of Figaro.’

The ‘Coronation Mass’ shows Mozart at his most commercial. It is beautiful and not very demanding and the audience loved it.

When Brahms read Fredreich Holderin’s poem, contrasting Haven’s tranquility with the turmoil of human life, he immediately started to set it to music. ‘Song of Destiny’ in three contrasting movements is one of Brahms’ most thrilling works. Flummerfelt’s conducting emphasized the languor of Heaven as well as the clash and clatter of human life.

Verdi wrote the ‘Te Deum,’ the final section of his ‘Four Sacred Piece,’ really thinking it was his final musical statement to his Italian public. The work is a choral cry of intense anguish to God, which finally resolves into uneasy peace.

‘Te Deum’ brought the huge audience at Gaillard Auditorium to their feet, ending the concert on a note of triumph.

Review

By Eliza Ingle

Post and Courier Reviewer

James McLure’s tragicomic play ‘Lone Star’ reminds us again that we can never go back home again. The College of Charleston Theatre Department’s series called Stelle di Domani performed this three-man ensemble in the intimate confines of the black-box theater transformed by a well-designed set by Kyle Coleman depicting the back yard of Angel’s Bar.

Brothers Roy and Ray, portrayed by College of Charleston actors Spencer Jones and Matthew Giedraitis respectively, pontificate in beer-swilling banter about war, women and days of yore.

Much of the action, of which not much transpires, revolves around Roy who wholeheartedly loves his country, his wife and his 1959 pink Thunderbird. He just is unsure where it all fits in after Vietnam. Jones’ acting is solid and at its best in his more explosive moments.

Ray’s simple-minded brother, Roy, is on much of the time and as he states ‘a Babe Ruth is the one thing I know,’ but we learn he also got to know Roy’s wife quite well when he was away as a soldier.

The third character, Cletis, aptly played by Patrick Ruff is a geeky childhood friend of the brothers who passes the blame of Roy’s wrecked car to Ray.

Directed by Sam McCalla, the one-act play is well-paced and the actors maneuver the small space very well. The actors are confident and the production succeeds in showing a mucked life run more amuck in a single night.

If you love opera,  and wonder what it takes to be an opera singer, do yourself a favor and see The Audition tomorrow at the Main Library.

This gripping documentary chronicles the final stages of the Metropolitan Opera’s National Council Auditions for 2007.  I saw it in April, and although I never experienced the pressure of a major audition, Susan Fromeke’s film, brought the nerves, insecuritries, and promise of these aspiring singers to life.

At the end of the movie, I found myself so invested in the singers that I found myself in tears on the way home.  It’s one of those documentaries that has stayed with me long past the viewing.

In fact, even if opera doesn’t particularly move you, The Audition will.  It’s a must see.

By Jeff Johnson
Post and Courier Reviewer
Piccolo Spoleto’s “Spotlight Concert,” on Monday at the Circular Congregational Church featured a very modern “Sonata for bassoon and Piano” by the contemporary composer, David Malsanka, and the original septet version of Igor Stravinsky’s “The Soldier’s Tale,” which to most ears seems modern, even though the popular work premiered in 1918.
Malsanka’s work is a rare opportunity for a bassoonist and when Christopher Sales took center stage, he played with such virtuoso power that any snakes in the building were dancing with joy. Malsanka’s four-movement piece furnished him with extremely long melodies that he performed with powerful breath control, beautiful phrasing and tonal beauty. The final movement is a long rapid build to an exciting climax with both bassoon and piano in perfect accord.
While Sales was warbling sweet sad melodies, pianist, Ghadi Shayban was creating a novel dramatic background, featuring oddly compelling strumming sounds that soared so high they sounded like a summoning for angels.
Alan Molina, violin; Charles Messersmith, clarinet; Karen Bilznik, trumpet; William Zehfuss, trombone; Edward Allman, double bass; Ryan Leveille, percussion; and, conductor, Alex Agrest, joined Sales for Stravinsky’s “Tale of the Soldier.” Usually, there are dancers, and actors to flesh out this tale of a soldier who is tempted to give up what he most cherishes to the devil, then defeats the devil only to find his life is still ruined, a theme that Stravinsky would further embellish in his operatic masterwork, “The Rake’s Progress.” The music stands well by itself, and under Agrest’s direction all the musicians contributed to the success of the piece. Since, much of the action centers on the soldier’s fiddle, violinist, Molina played a variety of melodies with ease. Bliznik’s trumpet brayed out the military themes associated with the soldier, and percussionist Leveille created vibrant drumbeats for the devil’s dance.

By Dottie Ashley
Post and Courier Reviewer
When Joe Clarke as Bobby Darin belted out “Beyond the Sea,” I was once again 15 and dancing in someone’s living room.
This is a scenario may have flashed through the minds of a number of those who saw the production of “Splish Splash: The Short and Spectacular Life of Bobby Darin” written by Keely Enright and produced at the Village Playhouse as part of Piccolo Spoleto.

Even for those too young to remember Darin, Clarke and his co-star Paulette Todd, in the double role of narrator and singer Connie Francis, brought such energy to the show that it also seemed to enthrall the younger people in the audience.

Each of the more than a dozen songs performed came off with polish and pizazz. The octet comprised one of the best stage bands I’ve heard locally and was led by pianist Frank Duvall, who also did the arrangements.
Clarke portrayed a terrific and accurate Darin, performing “Mack the Knife” and “Splish Splash,” both of which made Darin a legend.
Clarke also showed why the folk-like protest songs, which he switched to in the late 1960s after the death of his idol Robert Kennedy, didn’t suit Darin’s style.
Todd worked well with Clarke as they sang two duets, she in the role of Darin’s true love Connie Francis.

Enright and Dave Reinwald were exceptionally inventive in locating old clips of Darin from television shows and movies, no easy task. The clips were shown on a screen located between two staircases draped in glittering blue cloth.
Julie Ziff, who wasn’t credited in the program, designed superb costumes perfectly, depicting the radical fashion changes from the late 50s to the early 70s.

It would have been fun to have had a few showgirls in the Copacabana numbers, but that’s a mere quibble in a first-class evening in Mount Pleasant’s packed theater.