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Church Drama
April 18, 2005 - 1:31 p.m.

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We (Amy and her mum and sister-in-law and I) found out last night what the performance of Ruth was to be...oratory. Not opera, with all its soaring arias and whatnot. More straightforward singing, get the story out there kind of stuff. The music was modern, which I normally don't go for, but not bad. However, the tone was sometimes mismatched with the mood of the story - the composer tended toward heavy and dark, which I don't get from Ruth. The singers were, for the most part, excellent. Some very good voices, at least to my ears.

But there was staging. Oh, dear.

Thing is, it was in a church. A very pretty church in downtown Hometown, but not one that had a huge area for action. So the staging was cramped, which made it look like...staging. Staging instead of life, if you know what I mean. This is, perhaps, a theatre-geek nitpick.

Also, there's a small but key character in Ruth who doesn't have a name...it's part of the point of his existence. He is, in fact, called "So-and-So" by one of the other characters. (Although this gets softened in most English translations, it is what the Hebrew essentially means.) This libretto gave him a name, and I'm at pains to figure out where they got it. They also changed his relationship from "kinsman" to "brother," which would have severely complicated the plot. But these are church-geek nitpicks.

Even so, I did enjoy the performance. The singing was good and I do have a soft spot for the story.


Today's big news, of course, is the conclave in Rome. The occasional reader might take all my papal interest as an indication that I'm RC. I'm not, I just like a good church story. Word is that hyper-conservative Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (emphasis on "Rat," if you veer liberal) is the frontrunner. The Episcopal Church had better make room for more disaffected RC's...Ratz is not popular in the U.S.

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