Buddy at the Palace

Fio googled it, and Buddy Holly's life was a lot more fraught and complicated than Buddy, the Buddy Holly Story, portrays it.  The musical, now playing at Georgetown's Palace Theater, is really a tribute to the music of  the '50s which uses a storybook version of Holly's life as its vehicle.  The songs, of course, are what everyone is there for, as with Beehive--and just as people who attended Singin' in the Rain expected dancing.

And it's a good thing too, because  most of the cast was GREAT musically, but only competent as actors.  It's Fiorella's old complaint--they were declaiming rather than acting.  Ah, where is Stanislavsky when you need him?
 
There were, however, three stand-outs.  The first was Jacqui Cross, who imparted a joi de vivre to her roles that outshone everyone else on stage.. The second was set designer Barbara Jernigan, who made canvas look like cinderblock and brick..  And Fio loved the red lights in the recording studio and  the spotlights hanging off the proscenium.  The third stand-out was an accident. Justin Wright, playing a hip-swinging Richie Valens,  ripped out the crotch of his tight, tight pants during his energetic number.  In the great stage tradition, Wright and the cast covered as if it had all been part of the show.  At that point every character on stage was energized.

Okay, why is Fiorella so much more aware of "being" the character than she used to be?  She thinks it's because romance writing has tilted more and more toward "deep point of view," a sort of Stanislavsky of the literary world, and your Fio's tilted along with it.

She wants to not just observe, but to experience..