Date: Sun, 4 May 1997 14:04:31 -0400 From: Sandra Loosemore To: skatefans-l@udel.edu, rec.sport.skating.ice.figure-news@babyblue.cs.yale.edu Subject: Review: Gershwin on Ice Yesterday I drove out to Foxwoods to see "Gershwin on Ice". For those of you who aren't familiar with it, Foxwoods is a casino built on the Pequot reservation out in the middle of nowhere in eastern Connecticut. This was the first time I'd been there and I was surprised to find out what a huge complex it is. It wasn't exactly a pleasant surprise, either, because the shuttle bus from the parking lot deposits you at the opposite end from where the theatre is, and the whole complex seems to be as devoted to conspicuous consumption of tobacco as to gambling -- maybe that's the only genuine aspect of Native American culture about the place. ;-) Genuine or not, I thought I was about to die of asphyxiation by the time I found the box office. The good news is that smoking wasn't allowed in the theatre, but the bad news is that they screwed up my ticket reservation and it took them about 20 minutes to get it straightened out. Fortunately the smoke wasn't too awful in the area around the ticket counter. There weren't any programs available for this show, and the only skater being billed was Dorothy Hamill, so I was a little distracted throughout the first part of the show trying to figure out who was who, and there were a few skaters I didn't recognize at all. They did introduce the cast at the end of the show, so I got the complete list. Besides Hamill, the skaters were: Anita Hartshorn & Frank Sweiding, Tiffany Chin, Robert Wagenhoffer, Lisa-Marie Allen, Alexander Fadeev, Tamara Kuchiki & Neale Smull, Ryan Hunka, Sylvain Beauregard, Carla Erikson, and Simone Grigorescu. The show was hosted by Jeff Harner. He didn't skate, but he sang a few of the songs as well as doing the introductions. For those of you who've missed the show, don't despair; this performance was being taped for broadcast on A&E sometime in the fall. Overall, this was a wonderful show. The concept was appealing and there was nothing cheesy about the production, unless you want to count it being done as a stage event rather than as an arena show. To me it seemed like the main consequence of the small ice surface was that it really cramped ;-) the choreographic variety of the numbers, with most of the programs laid out as repetitive circles or figure-8 patterns, with most of the "tricks" done on a diagonal. Since there was no intermission to resurface the ice, it was looking really rutted by the end of the show; it must have been pretty crappy to skate on, but these guys were pros. There were absolutely no falls of any sort in this performance, BTW. Here are my notes on the various numbers in the show: "Fascinatin' Rhythm" -- Hartshorn & Sweiding with a chorus of fan-dancers. It sounds cheesy, but I actually thought they did cool things with the fans. "The Man I Love" -- Tiffany Chin. Nice double axel. "Strike Up The Band" -- ensemble. "'S Wonderful" -- Dorothy Hamill, with a double toe, double salchow, and some delightful footwork. "I've Got a Crush on You" -- Hartshorn & Sweiding. "Swanee" -- Robert Wagenhoffer doing an Al Jolson imitation. He looked great. The hair is shorter now, but the beard is still there. Triple sal, double axel, inventive spin variations, and that cartwheel arabian. "Embraceable You" and "I Got Rhythm" -- Simone Grigorescu(?) with Robert Wagenhoffer and Sylvain Beauregard(?). "Rhapsody in Blue" -- this was a big production number featuring more or less the entire cast in various groupings. Alexander Fadeev did some spiffy skating with a clarinet, and Hartshorn & Sweiding and Kuchiki & Smull briefly made a four. Tiffany Chin and Lisa-Marie Allen also had solo spots. "An American in Paris" -- another big production number with Kuchiki & Smull as soloists, with Tiffany Chin also featured. "How Long Has This Been Going On" -- Alexander Fadeev. He looked great, too -- spins in both directions, a triple toe, and a back flip. "Porgy and Bess" -- yet another big production featuring the entire cast, but this was not as successful as "Rhapsody in Blue" or "An American in Paris". Jeff Harner provided a summary of the plot of the opera, but this was really just three unrelated numbers that didn't make any attempt to act out the story or even portray the characters. Dorothy Hamill did "Summertime" as a solo, "I Got Plenty of Nothing" was done as an ensemble featuring Hartshorn & Sweiding, and "It Ain't Necessarily So" as another ensemble with Robert Wagenhoffer. "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" -- Tamara Kuchiki & Neale Smull. How many people remember that when Fred & Ginger introduced this song in the movie, they danced it on roller skates? :-) "They Can't Take That Away From Me" -- Lisa-Marie Allen. She came out for this dressed in a frumpy-looking dress with an apron and her hair tied up in a scarf, and wielding a broom (yeah, the ice definitely needed cleaning by this point). After dancing around with the broom for a bit, she made a very quick change and came back out in a slinky red dress to finish the number. Lisa-Marie still has a nice double axel, and she projects both a lot of class and a sense of humor. "A Foggy Day" -- Dorothy Hamill and ensemble. Complete with fog effects. "Nice Work If You Can Get It" -- Robert Wagenhoffer. Another nice triple salchow. "Our Love Is Here To Stay" -- vocal, with the cast coming out to pose for the finale. Rather than risk asphyxiation again on the way out, I went out the nearest exit I could find and hiked back to the parking lot on foot, passing by another mega-sized addition to the complex under construction. I also noted a small swampy area that suggested that the entire parking lot was probably built on what had formerly been prime froggy habitat. Alas, I suppose the frogs have been sacrificed to progress. :-( -Sandra