THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 21, 1994 TAG: 9407210030
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E01 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TERESA ANNAS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 126 lines
ROBERT PRESTON created the slippery character in 1957. Later, Bert Parks, Eddie Albert and Forrest Tucker tried their hands at his high jinks. In 1980, Dick Van Dyke gave him a sweet touch in a Broadway revival.
The role they've shared: ``Professor'' Harold Hill in Meredith Willson's ``The Music Man.''
Enter New York actor Al Bundonis.
In snagging the part for a Commonwealth Musical Stage (CMS) production, opening this weekend at Virginia Beach Pavilion Theater, Bundonis feels as if he won the lottery.
``I'm absolutely in love with the show,'' asserts Bundonis, who has long dreamed of playing Hill. He'll be supported by a cast of 57, and accompanied by the Virginia Beach Symphony Orchestra.
``Jeff (Meredith, CMS' managing director) offers me an opportunity I can't get anywhere else - to play in a house that size, with such a large cast and a full orchestra in the pit. An actor does not get those opportunities.
``These days, casts on Broadway average 30 people. In the pit, you might have 10 musicians, half of them playing electronic instruments.''
Harold Hill is a tour de force. The character is on stage for most of the full-length musical, and is often the center of attention. He sings nine songs, among them ``Seventy-Six Trombones,'' ``Marian the Librarian,'' ``The Sadder-But-Wiser-Girl'' and ``Trouble.''
Hill was a motor-mouthed guy who marched into River City, Iowa, in 1912, convincing stolid townsfolk that what they really needed was a big brass band. And if their children were not signed up to follow Hill's baton, they might instead palaver with the evil pool stick.
What true-blue American does not know Hill's rallying song:
We really got trouble
Right here in River City
With a capital T
And that rhymes with P
And that stands for pool!
Problem is, Hill didn't even know how to hold a tuba. Couldn't find F-sharp if his mother's life depended on it. So he sold the community on his ``think'' system. Think the notes, he informed them, and the sounds will follow.
A swindling scalawag - right?
Bundonis begs to differ.
``He's not a villain. He's a hero.
``Which is why, at the end of the show, he does win out. He gave them everything he said he would. They got their uniforms; they got their instruments,'' Bundonis insists.
While the townies didn't get a trained band leader with the equipment, they still learned how to play. Stiff and stubborn at first, by show's end ``they're jumping up and down, skipping and dancing. Harold has brought life to that town.
``Which is why he's the hero.''
Bundonis might be on a hero binge: Through June, he played the title role in the musical, ``Superman'' at an Albany, N.Y., theater.
PLAYING HILL IS LIKE GETTING ``a three-hour aerobics workout,'' says Bundonis, 28, who performed with CMS earlier this season as Frank Butler in ``Annie.''
At Columbia University, where he earned a bachelor's in international relations, Bundonis was a nationally ranked oarsman.
``I've had workouts that were brutal. And this is a very physically demanding show,'' says Bundonis.
Throughout the 90-minute first act, Bundonis never leaves the stage. To maintain his stamina, he's practicing restraint.
``Acting is so full of traps. With Harold, you think you have to be constantly selling. But a true salesman sits back and works off of what the other person says.''
With Hill's opening song, ``Trouble,'' Bundonis started out expending a lot of energy.
``What we came to realize is that Harold is the gospel preacher. He starts the conflagration. Once the fire's going, he doesn't keep throwing things on it. He just sits back and savors it. He lets everyone else work themselves into a frenzy. But he is very cool, very relaxed.
``Once you see that, you realize you can get through a three-hour show.''
MEREDITH WILLSON RECREATED HIS small-town childhood with ``The Music Man.''
He was born in 1902 in Mason City, Iowa. His mother (like Marian) gave piano lessons and he played piccolo in his high-school band.
Before he hit Broadway, he became a musical director for radio shows, and a composer of serious music and popular songs. Willson was 55 when ``The Music Man'' finally got produced, after going through 32 rewrites and a few producers.
The ultra-patriotic Willson - who also wrote the 1960 Broadway show ``The Unsinkable Molly Brown'' - once said ``Seventy-Six Trombones'' was ``the best thing I ever wrote.''
CMS' Meredith called ``The Music Man'' ``a beautifully crafted piece of musical theater.''
But Willson was downright mean to have the a cappella musical number ``Rock Island'' open the show, he said.
``It's very, very difficult. You have seven men who make all the musical sounds that normally would accompany a song. They establish a rhythm. They must maintain a rhythm.
``And yet, it's spoken. Beyond simply establishing rhythms and harmonies, they have to make good acting sense of the material. It is, in fact, dialogue.''
It's possible the real music man is off stage.
``I was talking to Al the other day,'' Meredith began. ``He said, `Don't you identify with that character? In a way, you are the music man. You came here to convince people they could have a musical theater company. There was some resistance. And you had to spend some time convincing people.' ''
And Meredith stayed. ``Just like Harold - I found out it was more real than I thought.'' MEMO: Tickets are $15 to $25; ages 16 and younger, $7.50. Discounts available.
They are available at First Virginia Bank branches, Pavilion box office
or by calling 340-5446.
ILLUSTRATION: Staff color photo by PETER D. SUNDBERG
Elizabeth Evans and Al Bundonis star in the Commonwealth Musical
Stage's production of 11The Music Man.''
Fast Fax
What: ``The Music Man''
Where: Va. Beach Pavilion Theater
When: Friday at 8 p.m.; Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m.; Sunday at 2 and
6 p.m.
by CNB