EDITOR’S JOURNAL
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| A tender moment from "The Sounds of Simon" |
By Leah Stratmann
March 6, 2008
As a fan of live theater in general, I was pleased when I got a press release about a new theater opening in Pensacola. I duly listed the opening show in our theater section, even though, in truth, Pensacola is a bit out of our distribution area. However, many from this area routinely travel to Pensacola for events, so it wasn’t totally out of the ordinary either.
Then I got a thank you email note from David Gerson, one of the partners in the Garden Street Playhouse venture. He thanked me for listing the event and invited me to a show and suggesting I might be moved to do a review. I explained our every two-week publishing schedule and that I had not planned on inserting a theatrical review and the best I could do for him was to come see the show and talk a bit about it in my column.
The Garden Street Playhouse is only performing musicals and the first one was an ambitious undertaking called The Sounds of Simon featuring the songs of Paul Simon and those of Simon and Garfunkel. Much of the music was re-arranged from the original by Phil Hinton and Gary Waldman. Waldman is one of the three owners of the theater and also will be a frequent performer.
The theater is a black box type, with red walls, which I liked for the brightness. The seats were probably bought from a movie house going out of business and were comfortable, which isn’t always the case with small theaters. There literally isn’t a bad seat in the house, and I would estimate the theater holds about 50 people.
The show is billed as Paul Simon’s Music in Vision & Light. Gerson and Jamison Troutman ably handled the lighting chores and punching up the pre-recorded musical accompaniment from a good sound system.
When the five performers were singing together, the result was a harmonious an energetic mix of voices, particularly on numbers such as Keep the Customer Satisfied and You Can Call Me Al. However some voices were better than others and each was given an opportunity to solo, to greater and lesser degrees of success. It is challenging to reach those high notes of Art Garfunkel and some of the performers just couldn’t put a bridge over that troubled water.
Yet a very few misses in a show that’s about an hour and a half and features more than 20 of the familiar hits, did not ruin the venture and should not keep you from going. The choreography by performer Kenny Green was perfectly suited to the small stage area and performed with great gusto by the entire cast. Standout performances by Pensacola natives Camille Perillo and Katrina Washington alone were worth the price of admission. These performers are tasked with practically miming some drama, sans dialog, into a non-stop musical production. All proved more than up to the challenge with just a few props and by using subtle body language.
There will be two more shows in this initial abbreviated season of The Garden Street Playhouse. The current production runs through this weekend. Visit www.gardenstreetplayhouse.com for upcoming shows, a map, and more.
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