Well.....today finally came! I was feeling like this was Christmas morning when I was a kid. Finally arrived with about two minutes to spare.....I was so scared I wasn't going to get in there in time.....TRAFFIC and an accident kept us from going very fast! Thats Houston for you.
The stage was tiny and within 6 ft of where I was sitting. SO I had full view of all going on.
The play began with a Thanksgiving dinner at the Ingalls home. They had invited Mrs. Oleson, and Nellie, Uncle George (Pa's brother that was in the war), Mr. Edwards, Cousins Peter and Nick. (Not sure if there really was a "Nick") Mrs. Oleson was eager to share "her" family recipes and constantly telling Nellie to pick up her skirts.
They had a wonderful Thanksgiving meal then fiddle music and dancing outside, all the while dealing with Nellie's flirting with Nick and talk of "country girls". Uncle George even joined in on the fun, although he was known to be extremely quite and distant since the war. Then due to rain moving in, the fun evening was cut short.
Over the next few weeks rains continued to make the creek rise and it was clear that Santa wouldn't be making it to the Ingalls for Christmas.
Mary and Laura were very disappointed, but Ma and Pa tried to explain to them that Santa is in the giving that we do and not just the things we recieve.
After a while the girls decide to make a gift for Ma and Pa. Mary had an apron that she altered for Ma and Laura made a tie for Pa out of a handkerchief.
Christmas morning came and Pa and Ma where happy to see that their daughters understood the talk they had given them the night before. It was then that loud pounding was heard at the door.
Pa opened it up to a half frozen Mr. Edwards in his longjohns. He warmed up and then told a tale of meeting up with Santa. The girls recieved gifts and then Mr. Edwards recieved a hot meal. The play ended with the decorating of the Christmas tree and thankfulness of shelter, family and friends.
I believe they tried to stay true to the books first as much as possible, but still bring in things that were familiar from the show. For instance....the "Come along, Nellie dear" that Mrs. Oleson always said.
The funniest thing to me was that Mr. Edwards was African american. He was tall, and lean as in the books. And as far as I'm concerned you couldn't have picked a better Mr. Edwards. He played the part up...from the way he called Charles "Ingalls" to the way he shivered coming into the
house in his longjohns.
Pa even reminded me of Michael Landon. He sat at the table with Ma and told her in his worried tone that he couldn't get across the creek to retrieve that gifts he wanted to get for his girls. Ma was very kind just as Karen Grassle was in showing her girls its better to give than to recieve.
Mary....she was as helpful and kind as ever. Eager to be kind to Nellie even when Laura said to Ma she wished she could be mean to her. ( To ma's shock) This young lady was about in her 20's. She has chosen theater as her minor in college. She seemed bright and will I'm sure have many more plays in her future.
Laura.....was as full of energy as this stage would allow. She played her part so well and not a child in the seats moved while watching her. This young lady is out of college,but she played Laura well because of her size. She might have been 5 feet tall. A great half-pint.
I have a feeling this girl wants an acting career and just might do that soon.
I think the only thing I can say I wished they had done is more fiddle music and I would have loved to hear Mr. Edwards sing "Ole Dan Tucker". All in all ...Two Thumbs UP!
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