Out of the Mouths of Babes, Braggarts and Bullfighters

The Freshman Musical, for all one can say about it as a tradition, is in a class of its own within the dramatic scene at Harvard. It defies categorization and the carping critic alike. Serving as something of a signature piece for first-years eager to showcase their as yet unheralded talents in composing, orchestrating, acting and singing, it is also a project in which they can have fun, in a way more most other theater groups really can't. The effort of this year's freshman flock, No Bull, provided a case-in-point illustration of this unique situation.

Unlike last year's production, which was largely a send-off of Harvard freshman life, replete with exclusively Harvard jokes, No Bull took on the form of a surprisingly conventional musical comedy of mistaken identity: pleasant if not particularly memorable music, a cheerfully tongue-in-cheek plot and caricatures obviously intended to be as farcical as possible. Set in the fictitious Pueblo Cito, a "backward little town" on the coast of Spain, the story revolves around three principal characters: El Bean (Tim Arnold '00), a famous matador; Hector (Elie Mystal '00), a sleazy politician; and Ana Sanchez (Tonia d'Amelio '00), a village girl whose fiance was trampled to death by bulls.

El Bean arrives at Pueblo Cito incognito the day before he is scheduled to appear at the town's annual bullfight, only to lose his memory when he is accidentally hit on the head by a pole. Finding speech notes dropped by Hector, he concludes that he is a politician and identifies himself as such. Meanwhile, Hector is mistaken by the townspeople for El Bean, and decides to use the error to his own advantage. Further complications arise when El Bean meets and falls in love with Ana, whose parents--or rather, whose mother--wish her to marry the great matador El Bean. You can guess the rest.

Reminiscent more of a high school theatrical than an HRDC production, No Bull was undeniably amateurish, both in its script and its staging. The sung lyrics were adequately funny, but the spoken dialogue, in its attempts at wittiness, wanted the finesse that characterizes even the most canned Broadway concoctions. The music was for the most part deftly scored and generally quite suitable for the purposes of musical comedy. Unfortunately, it ended up sounding dismayingly cacophonous in the hands of the orchestra, which was consistently squeaky, poorly unified and out of tune. Most of the cast members were obviously not experienced singers and did not have much more success blending during the ensemble pieces than the orchestra did.

Very little was done with the set: the same back-drop--a street in Pueblo Cito--persisted throughout the entire play. Setting changes were signaled by the addition of chairs, tables, benches and, in the last scene, the barrera of a bullfighting ring.

Nonetheless, what the production lacked in polish it made up for in sheer energy, projecting an exuberance that was ultimately irresistible. It also had a big plus in its leading man: Tim Arnold was perfect as the matador whose puffed-up complacency gives way to an amiable cluelessness with the onset of his amnesia. He even succeeded in making El Bean's smitten shyness around Ana engagingly dopey without degenerating into complete farce.

Tonia d'Amelio, as Ana, was the only real singer in the ensemble, and her voice in song had a sweetness that disappeared in the exaggerated emphasis of her speech. Her character was an obvious spinoff of the book-loving Belle of Disney's Beauty and the Beast, down to the sweet if slight, Broadway-Disneyish lyrics: "Books are better than love." Even her foils, the three brightly-clad senoritas--Lolita (Debbie Hunter '00), Rosita (Jasmin Roman '00), and Marguerita (Shannon Tracey '00)--who coo over the very name of El Bean, were clearly modeled after the three blondes who pine after macho-man Gaston.

The most entertaining role went to Edie Bishop '00, who nearly stole the show with her over-the-top turn as Senora Sanchez, a veritable virago of a wife and mother. She also got the best song, "Marry a Matador." Sasha Badian '00 was almost equally comical in his double role as the henpecked Senor Sanchez and one of a quartet of philosophizing bulls.

The bulls, by the way, were fairly amusing, more in their physical appearance and gestures than in their would-be-funny speculations on reincarnation and the superiority of bulls to man. However, one couldn't help but wonder why the most prominent of them was played by a female (Gloria Bruce) and, still more mystifyingly, referred to, in character, as a "she."

Still, fun, not logic, was the order of the day, and from the looks of things the freshman seemed to be having it. Their mark of success was inscribed in the fact that they managed to bring the audience into the ring of their enthusiasm.