Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts
By Alyce Wilson
While I was visiting my parents this past weekend, my dad and I saw the Sing-along Sound of Music.People came dressed as nuns or the Von Trapp family. It was like a clean version of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Great fun, darling.
The lyrics for each song were at the bottom of the screen so you could sing along. This included the nuns' chanting in the abbey, much to the audience's delight.
And there were call-outs. For example, you were supposed to cheer every time Maria entered a scene or when she did something fantastic, like told off the Captain when he tried to make her answer to a whistle.
One of the most fantastic things she does, of course, is rushing up that hillside at the beginning of the movie. But first there are endless minutes of torturous helicopter shots of the mountains. To prepare, you're supposed to shout, "She's coming! She's coming!" And then she makes that ecstatic spin and launches into "The Sound of Music," to thunderous applause.
You're supposed to hiss the Baroness and boo the Nazis. And bark at Rolf, the telegraph boy. Of course, when his sentiments start turning towards the Fuhrer, one must bark and then boo.
We had all been given a "fun pack," sanctioned by the distribution company, which included little gee-gaws like a scrap of ugly cloth. This, naturally, is supposed to be waved furiously when Maria is trying to figure out where she's going to find some cloth to make play clothes for the children. Meanwhile, she's standing in front of curtains which are due to be replaced, and you shout, "Behind you! Behind you!" until she finally gets wise and notices the curtains.
And naturally there was a plastic sprig of Edelweiss, which we were told we had to wave in time to that song being sung or else we'd be tossed out.
A bit confusing were the cards we were supposed to hold up during "Maria," where someone thought it was necessary we have something to hold up for key words. So you're to hold up a question mark while singing, "How do you solve a problem like" and then hold up the picture of Maria while singing "Maria." When you get to the line, "A flibbertigibbet," you hold up the word "flibbertigibbet" (since nobody could figure out how to illustrate it). And then for "A willo' the wisp" you hold up a sickly looking ghost. And finally, when you sing, "A clown" you're supposed to beep your nose twice, "Honk! Honk!"
What an awful lot of trouble, considering we were all in the dark anyway! It was, however, fun to do the clown part later when they play a reprise of the song in a very dramatic scene.
More fun than the sanctioned call-outs we'd been instructed on were the ones people came up with on their own. Every time Maria got in trouble, somebody would shout really loudly, "Uh-oh!"
In the second act, we were all pretty much laughed out. Besides, it gets dreadfully serious. The best call-out came when Maria is in the Mother Superior's office. Just as the music is welling up for "Climb Every Mountain," someone in the audience yelled, "Sing it, Sister!" Everyone laughed for the entire first verse.
And of course, there is that fantastic moment where Maria and the Captain kiss, and everyone got to set off our champagne poppers. Several people quite naturally missed their cue, and so throughout "Something Good," random popping sounds went off, to everyone's delight.
By the end of the movie, people were so exhausted from laughing that they barely remembered to applaud Maria. Still, as we left the theater, amid all the giddy smiles, I couldn't help thinking this was a great way to see the movie.
"Sing it, Sister!"
Moral:
Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good.
Copyright
2003 by Alyce Wilson
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