Pendragon - Leamington 12/12/09

Caamora In Santa Cruz, a great start to a new decade.

The Caamora shows in Santa Cruz de la Sierra were an incredible experience.

I want to share with you my sensations. I’m going to try to describe mainly what happened on stage during the two performances of SHE in Santa Cruz. In all fairness I should spend at least as much time describing the two years of work and effort that went into getting these shows to happen, but I just can’t write that much. Trust me when I say I have no recollection of ever seeing such difficult conditions for a show to go well. There were quite a few outstanding way beyond the call of duty efforts from quite a few of the behind scenes people. I really would like to mention all but Fernando Gomez and Tatiana Unzueta just laid it all on the line. I didn’t get to meet and talk with a lot of the other people so it leaves me a bit handicapped to speak about them. What is clear to me that I saw a huge amount of work and incredible grit to get this done.

The city of Santa Cruz in Bolivia has a population of about 1.5 million and has been expanding aggressively over the last few years. It’s the fastest developing area in the country. In life all is about where you were and where you’re heading, so due to the city’s growth there’s an expanding middle class and thus there’s an increasing interest in entertainment and cultural events.

For something like SHE to happen you need a promoter with the vision and perception to know that the city he lives in is just waiting for an event like this to happen. You need an incredibly well written musical or Rock Opera that has the character and quality to breakthrough to the people of a city who have never been able to experience a show like this in their hometown. If you’re able to merge those elements that are not easy to find you have a combination that will produce brilliant results. That is what happened in Santa Cruz

Two years ago I don’t think anyone except Ricardo Rosenblatt and Clive Nolan would have ever even thought of mounting a full scale stage production like this one in Santa Cruz. You have to be a dreamer in the best meaning of the word. You have to be committed, tough, visionary, very strong and a bit of a mental case too.

I arrived in Santa Cruz early in the morning the day before the first performance and was invited to be present during the show’s preparations at the Eagles Theater. When I got there things were not looking good, in fact they were far from it.

The preproduction and rehearsals had all sorts of difficulties. The stage decoration was completed way beyond schedule. The sound equipment was constantly breaking down and mysteriously popping back to life making it impossible to have consistent rehearsals. There were countless hurdles caused by language barriers between the different parties, plus a clear clash of experience and idiosyncrasies. Santa Cruz has no tradition what so ever in mounting complex stage productions, so much of the local personnel just don’t have the same sense of urgency that the more seasoned Anglo speaking members do. Tensions were high, so over the long days and on a rotating basis just about everyone involved lost their temper and threatened to walk out and go back home at one point or the other.

I don’t want to dwell too much on the problems since there were so many positives that came out of Santa Cruz.

I’ll never know if it was God in the Heavens, or the theatrical muses under the stage or even some Incan deities hiding in the foyer, or maybe a combined effort of all the mentioned but when the curtains rose most major problems just vanished, trembling hands steadied, performing instincts flourished and something very beautiful happened, the show simply worked. The audience loved it and that is what really matters after everything is said and done. I won’t compare the first night with the second but it was logically smoother than the first. I think that the final product of those two nights was great and that’s all that I really care about.

This was such a huge and complicated group effort that it almost sounds unfair to mention any of the parts individually.

On stage there was a unique combination of musicians, dancers, singers, technicians and supporting personnel from Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Poland, USA, Wales, England and Scotland. It was sort of like singing the 12 days of Christmas. The modified lyrics would need a bit of work but they could start like “On the 12^th day of practice, Caamora had on stage, 1 Bolivian singer, 2 Chilean musicians, 3 Polish citizens, etc..”

The performance team of musicians and singers that was setup for these shows in Bolivia was rock solid and I’m still amazed that such a diverse group of people were able to come together and produce such an exciting show.

I really don’t know where to start describing what I felt while the huge amount of talent on stage delivered their performances. I’ll start by saying that the United Nations of musicians that performed in the upper echelons of the theater stage was simply great. They were cohesive, solid and sounded like a true orchestra.

Over the years I’ve been lucky enough to listen to most of the individual musicians play and perform in different bands and projects. The musicians I had never listened to in the past all have years of performing experience so nobody could really doubt that someone was out of their league.

The keyboards of Claudio Momberg and the bass playing of Jose Luis Ramos from Chile have always been great to listen to and their ability combining style and technique has always been an asset which they certainly displayed during the performances of SHE. Claudio showed his capacity to play while having to fill Clive’s shoes. I can imagine that it was not easy to play the keys knowing that none other than Clive Nolan was depending on him to play his forte. Jose Luis was rock solid keeping the rhythm section plowing through the scenes and movements without hesitation.

I’ve never seen Mark Westwood play live but I always thought that his playing on the NEO dvd I have at home was spot on and he definitely was up to caliber in Bolivia. He switches from electric to acoustic sounds with remarkable ease He leads and plays rhythm guitar parts with equal grace, a true asset to any live performance. He also has a great natural communion with the drummer Scott Higham so between both of them they were able to help keep the whole band in tempo when some mysterious problems seeped into the in ear monitors. One of the treats of going to Bolivia was to see such a well-rounded musician perform at the height that the circumstances required.

Gonzalo Paz is a Bolivian guitarist whom over the years has played in a long list of different bands. He has roamed through so many types of music that he can count on an endless supply of experiences to know exactly what each part of the orchestration needs. It doesn’t matter if the moment requires subtlety or iron power he’s great with both extremes and all the in betweens too.

I don’t think there’s any music fan on Earth who can’t be mesmerized with the beauty of Electric Light Orchestra’s string arrangements. So if someone like Hugh McDowell who was actually a main part of that glorious sound is performing on stage; it’s inevitable that the cello arrangements will be rich and bright thus becoming key elements to enrich the orchestration of SHE also.

I know of no other natural instrument that conveys mystery and fantasy as well as the Oboe. It’s a very clear and penetrating instrument, and it sounds like no other. Everything about the Oboe is particular. It’s such a unique instrument that most professional players even carve and mold their own double reeds to make their individual playing truly impossible to imitate. Alaster Bentley has years of experience and through his manning of the Oboe he was able to give the powerful orchestration of SHE some necessary contrast. His playing gave the arrangements the touch of mystery and penetrating personality that the music needed to transform the character of Ayesha into the powerful and conflicted 2,000 year old evil queen that won’t accept a no from anyone.

All the musicians and their art were highlighted with four main character vocalists and by the wonderful choral arrangements of the “Coro Municipal Santa Cecilia” commanded by the amazingly passionate Ana Karin Rrendon Crespo.

Just to have the opportunity enjoy the wonderful vocal talents and acting abilities of Christina Booth and Alan Reed was well worth the trip to Bolivia. However what made it a really special treat was to see them out of their normal fish bowls, the bands Magenta and Pallas. A lot of us tend to pigeon hole singers based on the very little that we know of them by listening to their albums, live recordings or by attending a few concerts that we may have personally seen. It seems that most of us are more open minded to seeing actors perform different kinds of roles than we allow ourselves with singers. We tend to forget that just like any other person they too have many aspects and layers in their lives. Allan and Christina proved beyond the slightest doubt that there’s a lot more to them than just Pallas or Magenta. Don’t get me wrong I like those bands very much so what I’m wishing for by no means is meant as a negative to their habitual performing neighborhoods, on the contrary. I sincerely hope that they have future opportunities to swim in other waters for their own enrichment and also my own as a listener.

Everything about Agnieszka Swita seems to have been born to interpret a powerful mysterious female figure. The person who plays the character of Ayesha needs to create a stage persona that is equally feared and desired. By description in the novel Ayesha needs to be heart stopping gorgeous and also have the power to erase from the face of Earth without an ounce of hesitation anyone who contradicts or displeases her in any way shape or form. As soon as she appeared on stage it was clear to me that Clive Nolan found the perfect match. In fact Agnieszka’s name even sounds similar to Ayesha the character’s name. She’s from Poland and that in itself makes her quite mysterious. The penetrating turquoise colored eyes that crown a long lean and graceful body just come alive with passion while she’s on stage. Her singing makes you believe you’re in the presence of cruel monster who’s long held notes convey the creature’s 2,000 years of gathering resentment and hate towards the world.

When H. Rider Haggard gave his novel the title SHE; it is usually considered that it was short for “She who must be obeyed”, if that is what the author intended as a message, then I must conclude that by choosing Agnieszka Swita as leading lady for that role Clive Nolan demonstrated the ability to not just write an incredibly powerful musical, he proved that he also has the eye to find the perfect “physique du role” for the main character.

I went to Bolivia with a clearly favorably biased opinion towards Scott Higham. Over the years of knowing Nick Barrett from Pendragon I don’t recall him ever being remotely so enthusiastic and fired up about the other drum players that have been part of that band. Prior to Bolivia I had never seen or heard a single recording of what Nick is calling the new sounding Pendragon. So I was really looking forward to listening to Scott. I was however well aware of the existing limitations that performing in this kind of show requires. I had heard a lot of how powerful Scott sounds and thought that he would need to be very contained. This type of presentation would require Scott to be more of a session musician and not be the live performance player that I had heard so much about.

I’m not a musician but I understand tennis very well. In tennis there’s a natural gift that a player is simply born with or not. No matter how perfect or relatively imperfect the technique of his strokes some players have the gift of ground breaking power others just don’t. It doesn’t matter how big, tall short or small the player might be. That power can’t be pin pointed as originating in the wrist, the elbow, shoulder, legs or in any combination of body parts imaginable. If the player has that gift of power, it simply exists. For all I know it might simply come from his soul, and would prove once again that a person’s spirit is the most invisible but most powerful muscle in the body.

Where ever his unexplainable power comes from, Scott has a similar gift for playing the drums. In tennis you need that savage power but you must be able to control it, if not the ball would never land in the bounds of the court thus making you lose the match. With drums if it’s simply pure raw power it becomes annoying and even a hindrance to the rest of the musicians. However Scott has something I would dare call “charismatic power”. In other words you can tell he’s loud you can tell he has power galore, but instead of irritating your eardrums you just want him to keep playing on and on. He’s rocking your insides, you feel like you want to explode and yell, but at the same time you still want to keep things in a beautifully controlled hum. It was quite an experience which I hope to eventually relive during a Pendragon concert in the near future so I can see him perform without the logical constraints of a musical.

All the good I have to say about my experience as a spectator of SHE in Bolivia boils down to two very specific points. All of the great things I saw exist due to Clive’s writing and creativity. I should also add a few other aspects but I feel that all of them can be anchored to those mentioned. I must highlight Clive’s passion to be constantly pushing his repertoire to express himself in different formats. The sheer amount of music he has written over the years is jaw dropping. What makes it so magnificent is that in spite of the volume it’s incredibly good writing not just tons of filler material. I can’t really say what his best creation has been and since he’s so rich in the variety it would also be very unfair since the qualification of “best” would inevitably be according to my inclination to like a certain specific style over another. So I’ll simply say that SHE is definitely among the best he has ever done. It is clearly the most ambitious project he’s ever wrapped himself in.

Clive created a fantastic piece of work however he really surprised me as a performer. His live singing is very good, a lot better than I would have imagined a few years ago. I’ve always seen him on stage behind the keyboards with Pendragon or Arena. For him to play the role of Leo he really peeled away his entire previous image. To see him moving freely on stage instead of his usual barrier of keyboards, without his classic black trench coat and no other instrument than his vocal chords was a remarkable contrast. I would dare say he was naked in a certain way. I believe that for a performer to change the way they have always communicated with their audience is excruciating difficult. The years of always playing keyboards such as in Clive’s case might make a performer very reluctant or afraid of doing something so different or out of his natural comfort zone. A lot of times the audience can be very unforgiving. They demand artists constantly do something new, original and different so as to keep their own interest alive. However if the artist in question does something “too” different they basically behead their so called favorite artist for not being loyal to their origins and the typical remark goes something like this “Nowadays he does junk, I like what he used to do 20 years ago”. So I sincerely applaud for Clive taking such a huge dive into unchartered waters, for daring to break his previous mold and allowing himself to reshape his image and show us what he’s capable of doing as the incredibly creative artist that he is.

I would like to be more detailed about the choreographies and the dancers. I just haven’t been exposed to enough ballet or modern dance to have a better way of describing what I saw. I listen to tons of music while driving or doing other activities but trying to watch videos of dancers while in the car or doing household chores could lead to vehicular accidents or chopped off fingers. I don’t want to fall victim of any accidents describing what I saw so I will keep it very simple. For someone who has no real inclination to watch dancing I really enjoyed all the movements that occurred on stage. The dancers looked great as a coordinated group, and they had plenty of margin to also shine individually or in pairs during numerous solos and duos. Their constant costume changes were worthy of any production I’ve seen in other parts of the world and went along very well with the different moments of the show and helped change the visual coloring of the stage in a beautiful way.

I know I’ve written a lot, maybe too much for certain people, but it’s a long flight from Santa Cruz to Miami and all the sensations are still very vivid so it’s easy to overdo it with the details. I’m very happy for all the people involved but especially for Ricardo and Clive. I think they pioneered something very important in Santa Cruz and will be the talk of the town for a long time. They made something happen for the first time and set a high bar for anyone else to follow. That is the kind of achievement that very few are able engineer.

This event is a true before and after for Santa Cruz. The fact that city mayor officially named Clive and Agnieszka “Illustrious Personalities of the City” really highlights what I believe.

As a signing off message I’ll simply say it was a wonderful and unique experience and I’m very grateful to a great friend like Ricardo who made it possible for me to be there and witness a dream that started two years ago and came to life in January of 2010. This was basically a great start to a new decade.

Sincerely

Victor Gospodinoff

January 24^th 2010