We’re back!
Yes, it’s been a while. First we didn’t post because of the pre-holiday rush of events making our weekends unusually busy, and then we didn’t post because we weren’t in Lancaster. I don’t blame us for that. But why haven’t we posted in the last month? Sheer laziness, friends and family. Sheer laziness.
Happily, the New Lancastrians adventure-a-week endeavor is back on track with new vigor! And to kick it off, we begin with the free tickets we received to the Fulton Theater’s sponsored-by-Franklin & Marshall performance of Annie Get Your Gun!
When we got the email that tickets were on offer, I quickly googled the musical, wondering why neither of us were familiar with it despite both growing up with solid childhood indoctrination into the world of musical theater. Why not? Was it creepy or terrible? I literally knew nothing about it other than having heard the title before — not even that it was about Annie Oakley, though in hindsight that seems like it should have been obvious — but when I saw the music was by Irving Berlin and included the famous tunes “There’s No Business Like Show Business” and “Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better),” I told Ben, “I think we’re safe.”
It turns out that conclusion was hasty and a tad over-optimistic. But I’m getting ahead of the story.
The first cool thing was that these free tickets also entitled us to arrive early for a velvet-roped Franklin & Marshall-only reception in the theater lobby, which included one of the objectively greatest ideas in the world, THEMED DESSERTS.
While staff wandered around in more cowboy hats and the theater tried to hawk a shocking amount of merch (do a lot of people buy a t-shirt plus a onesie for their tyke at every play they go to?), and people who turned out to be mostly alumni chit-chatted awkwardly in small clusters, Ben & I had the pleasure of checking out the displays in the lobby about the theater’s history. The Fulton claims to be the oldest continually working theater in the United States, which is a pretty darn cool legacy. Much less cool is the fact that, according to Wikipedia, it was built on the site of a notorious massacre. But hey, it’s “one of only three theatres recognized as National Historic Landmarks”!
The outcome of all this is that they had amazing posters and even newspaper advertisements for the theater’s shows dating back to the 19th century. I had to take a picture of this one, because as Ben pointed out, this really represents a font enthusiast’s greatest time to be alive:
Of course, after all this preamble, we did eventually find ourselves in the theater itself. And what a theater it is!
So, the show began. And, um… have any of you readers actually seen Annie Get Your Gun? Because it’s… actually kind of awful.
I want to clarify immediately, lest this public post by any stretch of possibility fall into the hands of someone involved, that this was not the fault of the actors or anyone else involved in the production. They did a great job. Acting, costumes, sets, random aerialist performances, it was all high-quality. Admittedly, I didn’t really understand why there was a character who periodically broke the 4th wall and announced each scene — since there was no frame story, it served no purpose — but for all I know, they were just being faithful to the original script.
The script, though… there we have the problem. A show about a woman sharpshooter sounds like it should be a fun, spunky, empowering story, right? So why did I just feel gross watching it? First there was the part where Annie’s little siblings, played by three competent child actors, sang “Doin’ What Comes Natur’lly,” a song about how poor hick kids don’t need to read or write because they know how to, um, enjoy carnal acts.
Come on, Irving Berlin. You wrote “White Christmas.” There is no excuse for this.
Then, in completely inexplicable and sudden fashion, Annie falls madly in love at first sight with Frank Butler, the star sharpshooter of the traveling Wild West Show. Now, it could be just because I didn’t find the actor playing Frank’s performance charming, but the egotistical, smug, womanizing way he’s scripted doesn’t help at all. Frankly (heh), I thought Annie was really settling for much less with this drip, but from the moment she sets eyes on him, the only thing she can think about is getting him to propose.
From there on, that’s pretty much the whole show: will Annie get Frank to marry her? Or will he be driven away by the fact that she’s a success and — gasp — a better shot and more exciting performer than him?
Oh, with a side of everybody constantly hating on the thirty-something-year-old female character, Frank’s assistant, because she’s single and so (by definition) desperate. Frank used to be into her, but not any more, because she’s aged (unlike him?). So she’s just depicted as all-around-terrible and exists to be the butt of jokes.
In the end, it didn’t work out quite as badly as I feared, I will say that. Instead of pretending she’s a worse shot that Frank, just to soothe his ego, we get the happy ending of Annie pretending that they tie for best. Of course, she’s actually better, but who cares? They’re getting marrieeeeeed!
So, overall, not the greatest show, but a job well done by the performers and a very good inducement to visit the Fulton again, if they’re doing a musical we enjoy.
The New Lancastrians 