![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avevale_intelligencerI'm uniquely qualified to review this event, you understand, because I wasn't there. If I had been there I couldn't have written this review. But because I wasn't there, I can give you the complete lowdown on what a triumph it was and how brilliantly everyone performed.
But what is Before The Dawn, you ask? (Well, I'm almost sure I heard someone ask...) Allow me to explain.
It Started With A Riff
Or a reiver, as we call them. Some sort of desert brigand, anyway.
Mike Whitaker came up with a guitar riff back in the eighties, which turned into a song, which led to two more. A nice little trilogy of songs, perfectly balanced, about a sentry on a tower who dies when it's attacked, and the girl who mourns his death. Then I came along and wrote another one, and then I think it was Valerie Housden who wrote another, and the whole thing toppled over and began to roll downhill, picking up songs as it went like that peculiar game with the funny name. It seemed for a while as if everyone was going to join in. Before The Dawn became a craze, then a joke, then a bit of a bore, but it didn't die. It acquired a beginning, a middle and an end, a backstory, a setting and a cast (with gnomic names such as Grandma No-One Asks, King Unto IV, Private Shattered Dreams, and others). In one long weekend various of the perpetrators met together and worked out a grand finale, and there for a while it rested; huge, sprawling, requiring a Ken Campbell to put on a stage, or maybe two of him.
Years later, we returned to it, poked it a bit to make sure it was still alive, and set about paring it down to a performable length, with a view to staging it at a British filk convention. This was duly done, at AXXIdental, the twenty-first UK filkcon, and went down rather well. People emerged from the wreckage dazed and staggering, muttering "Never again quite yet," and that was that.
Till someone had the notion that it would be really great to restage it for the London Worldcon...
Problems, Problems
Most groups who put on plays and such have a relatively easy time of it.Local am-dram societies are, well, local. Professonal theatres can afford to pay for actors to come and perform, usually. British filk fandom is scattered all over the country, and is a good deal older than it was in 1989, or even 2009, with jobs, families, commitments, or in some cases interesting medical conditions. Getting a cast together in such circumstances, organising rehearsals, band practices and such, is...problematical. Not so much headaches as the full-blown Scanners experience. That this group managed it at all is a triumph in itself.
For the 2009 production, I had dashed off a few lines of blank verse to be read by a narrator, to fill in the gaps between songs, give the cast and crew time to get on and off and reset the stage, and so on, and Richard Wheatley had read them on that occasion with verve and aplomb. I wanted to do it myself, but hadn't been able to get to rehearsals. For the Worldcon, I was determined. Valerie, as director and producer, kindly allowed me to skip rehearsals till the very last one, and she and others went to great lengths to help us get there.
We couldn't.
And now you know why, if I'd been there, I couldn't have written this review. I would have been in it. Fortunately, at two weeks' notice, Rick Hewett stepped in and did a bang-up job as narrator, lending my lines all the dignity and the depth of expression they needed.
I wasn't the only cast member who had to drop out, necessitating sudden replacements. There were interesting technical issues to work out as well, and Omega agreed to run the lighting at the very last minute. The last two or three rehearsals were, I gather, somewhat fraught. That the production hit the standard it did reflects the hard work, the talent and the sheer community spirit of all concerned, and I can't possibly praise them as highly as they deserve.
Apart From All That, How Was The Show?
You may have gathered that I think it was brilliant. I've watched it on video, thanks to Rafe Culpin who very kindly shared eight two-gig-plus files with me (no mean feat in itself) and I was enthralled. It would be invidious to start singling people out, but you know I'm going to anyway. Biggest surprise was Thomas Ibbs as the Prince, who played the transition from a rich young idler dallying with music to the wise and compassionate heir to his throne excellently, and who has a magnificent voice and knows how to use it. Can we keep him, please? :) I'd also like to single out Paul Bristow as the Rumour-Monger, who has some of the most fiendishly difficult lines to sing in the entire show (I know because I wrote most of them) and managed to act as well. His performance when imprisoned and tortured by the Warlord was heart-wringing, and his final line managed to carry total conviction and get a laugh, a difficult thing to pull off.
Richard Wheatley stepped in as the Warlord, who had only been an offstage presence till this production, and again, sang with conviction and made the character a person rather than the cardboard stereotype I had been envisaging. Phil Allcock and Rika Koerte, as the Captain and the Girl, were excellent as they had been in the previous outing, and Rhodri James as the Sage completely blew me away. His rendition of "Excuse Me" (another fiendish one of mine) was terrifying, showing how shocking it can be when a quiet, contemplative man loses his temper. Jackie Mitchell played Magdalene, and carried it off beautifully, and her voice too is magnificent; and Valerie, stepping in as the Beggar to replace Gwen Knighton Raftery, made the character her own and did a marvellous job. Peter Westhead as the Sergeant was excellent comic relief and handled his difficult lines (not by me this time) very well.
The chorus, frantically swapping hats and costumes in between scenes to play reivers, citizens, guards, drunks and priests, gave us some wonderful harmonies in the big numbers and some good comic business when not singing. They were organised by Tricia Williams who did a fantastic job. The stage was efficiently and unobtrusively set and reset by the Westheads and various assistants; somebody said to me that there wouldn't be British filk without them, and certainly this production would have been in trouble. If anyone qualified as unsung heroes (and really, when you think about it, what is a music-based subfandom doing letting its heroes stay unsung? I mean, come on chaps), they do. So three rousing cheers for Mike, Kathy, Karen, and their myrmidons. And while I'm at it, three more for Deborah Crook on tech and Omega on lighting.
I couldn't see the band, because Rafe was very properly videoing the stage, but I could hear them, and they were terrific. The drummer in particular was very good, slipping in and out of seven-eight time with no trouble at all. Apart from that, I'm not sure who played what, so I hope they will forgive me if I just say that the music left nothing to be desired, ranging from folk to rock to (at one point) a tango. I was especially impressed with an eerie, discordant held note after Midnight At The Tower...till it turned out to be a MIDI glitch. :) They should keep it in.
I can't finish this bit without mentioning Lissa Allcock and Anna Raftery, who organised the filk programme at Loncon and did their very best for us, clearing the filk room for most of the days before so that a final technical rehearsal and soundcheck would be possible. And, of course, the audience, who made it all worthwhile by turning up, and signalled their enjoyment of the whole thing with enthusiastic applause.
As for me, I sat here grinning like a fool, lipsynching along with the songs, laughing at the funny bits, and crying buckets at the end. There were occasional fluffs--no live performance is
complete without them--but on the whole it was a spirited, professional and captivating performance, and I intend to watch it again and again.
So, What Next?
Well, at the moment everyone's still recovering, I think. We're still at the "never again quite yet" stage I mentioned earlier. But, when the dust has settled and they can look back on it with pride as the triumph it is, I'm certainly hoping that we can think about maybe recording a studio album of the entire show. (Yes, I want another chance to do my own narration!) Mike has said, in front of the audience, that there will be a DVD of the show, and it's been suggested that this would be eligible for next year's Hugoes. Paul is already mulling over writing the screenplay for Before The Dawn: The Movie. I'd love to see it done on an actual stage, with real sets and a full chorus. I'd like someone to market a Before The Dawn alarm clock, in the shape of a tower that wakes you up with the rock guitar break from the original song as simulated flames shoot from the tower windows. "I'm A Reiver" t-shirts. Warlord bobbleheads. The possibilities are endless.
Before The Dawn has seen off over nine thousand dawns since its inception. And the darkest hour has never been brighter.
But what is Before The Dawn, you ask? (Well, I'm almost sure I heard someone ask...) Allow me to explain.
It Started With A Riff
Or a reiver, as we call them. Some sort of desert brigand, anyway.
Mike Whitaker came up with a guitar riff back in the eighties, which turned into a song, which led to two more. A nice little trilogy of songs, perfectly balanced, about a sentry on a tower who dies when it's attacked, and the girl who mourns his death. Then I came along and wrote another one, and then I think it was Valerie Housden who wrote another, and the whole thing toppled over and began to roll downhill, picking up songs as it went like that peculiar game with the funny name. It seemed for a while as if everyone was going to join in. Before The Dawn became a craze, then a joke, then a bit of a bore, but it didn't die. It acquired a beginning, a middle and an end, a backstory, a setting and a cast (with gnomic names such as Grandma No-One Asks, King Unto IV, Private Shattered Dreams, and others). In one long weekend various of the perpetrators met together and worked out a grand finale, and there for a while it rested; huge, sprawling, requiring a Ken Campbell to put on a stage, or maybe two of him.
Years later, we returned to it, poked it a bit to make sure it was still alive, and set about paring it down to a performable length, with a view to staging it at a British filk convention. This was duly done, at AXXIdental, the twenty-first UK filkcon, and went down rather well. People emerged from the wreckage dazed and staggering, muttering "Never again quite yet," and that was that.
Till someone had the notion that it would be really great to restage it for the London Worldcon...
Problems, Problems
Most groups who put on plays and such have a relatively easy time of it.Local am-dram societies are, well, local. Professonal theatres can afford to pay for actors to come and perform, usually. British filk fandom is scattered all over the country, and is a good deal older than it was in 1989, or even 2009, with jobs, families, commitments, or in some cases interesting medical conditions. Getting a cast together in such circumstances, organising rehearsals, band practices and such, is...problematical. Not so much headaches as the full-blown Scanners experience. That this group managed it at all is a triumph in itself.
For the 2009 production, I had dashed off a few lines of blank verse to be read by a narrator, to fill in the gaps between songs, give the cast and crew time to get on and off and reset the stage, and so on, and Richard Wheatley had read them on that occasion with verve and aplomb. I wanted to do it myself, but hadn't been able to get to rehearsals. For the Worldcon, I was determined. Valerie, as director and producer, kindly allowed me to skip rehearsals till the very last one, and she and others went to great lengths to help us get there.
We couldn't.
And now you know why, if I'd been there, I couldn't have written this review. I would have been in it. Fortunately, at two weeks' notice, Rick Hewett stepped in and did a bang-up job as narrator, lending my lines all the dignity and the depth of expression they needed.
I wasn't the only cast member who had to drop out, necessitating sudden replacements. There were interesting technical issues to work out as well, and Omega agreed to run the lighting at the very last minute. The last two or three rehearsals were, I gather, somewhat fraught. That the production hit the standard it did reflects the hard work, the talent and the sheer community spirit of all concerned, and I can't possibly praise them as highly as they deserve.
Apart From All That, How Was The Show?
You may have gathered that I think it was brilliant. I've watched it on video, thanks to Rafe Culpin who very kindly shared eight two-gig-plus files with me (no mean feat in itself) and I was enthralled. It would be invidious to start singling people out, but you know I'm going to anyway. Biggest surprise was Thomas Ibbs as the Prince, who played the transition from a rich young idler dallying with music to the wise and compassionate heir to his throne excellently, and who has a magnificent voice and knows how to use it. Can we keep him, please? :) I'd also like to single out Paul Bristow as the Rumour-Monger, who has some of the most fiendishly difficult lines to sing in the entire show (I know because I wrote most of them) and managed to act as well. His performance when imprisoned and tortured by the Warlord was heart-wringing, and his final line managed to carry total conviction and get a laugh, a difficult thing to pull off.
Richard Wheatley stepped in as the Warlord, who had only been an offstage presence till this production, and again, sang with conviction and made the character a person rather than the cardboard stereotype I had been envisaging. Phil Allcock and Rika Koerte, as the Captain and the Girl, were excellent as they had been in the previous outing, and Rhodri James as the Sage completely blew me away. His rendition of "Excuse Me" (another fiendish one of mine) was terrifying, showing how shocking it can be when a quiet, contemplative man loses his temper. Jackie Mitchell played Magdalene, and carried it off beautifully, and her voice too is magnificent; and Valerie, stepping in as the Beggar to replace Gwen Knighton Raftery, made the character her own and did a marvellous job. Peter Westhead as the Sergeant was excellent comic relief and handled his difficult lines (not by me this time) very well.
The chorus, frantically swapping hats and costumes in between scenes to play reivers, citizens, guards, drunks and priests, gave us some wonderful harmonies in the big numbers and some good comic business when not singing. They were organised by Tricia Williams who did a fantastic job. The stage was efficiently and unobtrusively set and reset by the Westheads and various assistants; somebody said to me that there wouldn't be British filk without them, and certainly this production would have been in trouble. If anyone qualified as unsung heroes (and really, when you think about it, what is a music-based subfandom doing letting its heroes stay unsung? I mean, come on chaps), they do. So three rousing cheers for Mike, Kathy, Karen, and their myrmidons. And while I'm at it, three more for Deborah Crook on tech and Omega on lighting.
I couldn't see the band, because Rafe was very properly videoing the stage, but I could hear them, and they were terrific. The drummer in particular was very good, slipping in and out of seven-eight time with no trouble at all. Apart from that, I'm not sure who played what, so I hope they will forgive me if I just say that the music left nothing to be desired, ranging from folk to rock to (at one point) a tango. I was especially impressed with an eerie, discordant held note after Midnight At The Tower...till it turned out to be a MIDI glitch. :) They should keep it in.
I can't finish this bit without mentioning Lissa Allcock and Anna Raftery, who organised the filk programme at Loncon and did their very best for us, clearing the filk room for most of the days before so that a final technical rehearsal and soundcheck would be possible. And, of course, the audience, who made it all worthwhile by turning up, and signalled their enjoyment of the whole thing with enthusiastic applause.
As for me, I sat here grinning like a fool, lipsynching along with the songs, laughing at the funny bits, and crying buckets at the end. There were occasional fluffs--no live performance is
complete without them--but on the whole it was a spirited, professional and captivating performance, and I intend to watch it again and again.
So, What Next?
Well, at the moment everyone's still recovering, I think. We're still at the "never again quite yet" stage I mentioned earlier. But, when the dust has settled and they can look back on it with pride as the triumph it is, I'm certainly hoping that we can think about maybe recording a studio album of the entire show. (Yes, I want another chance to do my own narration!) Mike has said, in front of the audience, that there will be a DVD of the show, and it's been suggested that this would be eligible for next year's Hugoes. Paul is already mulling over writing the screenplay for Before The Dawn: The Movie. I'd love to see it done on an actual stage, with real sets and a full chorus. I'd like someone to market a Before The Dawn alarm clock, in the shape of a tower that wakes you up with the rock guitar break from the original song as simulated flames shoot from the tower windows. "I'm A Reiver" t-shirts. Warlord bobbleheads. The possibilities are endless.
Before The Dawn has seen off over nine thousand dawns since its inception. And the darkest hour has never been brighter.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-30 10:23 pm (UTC)