# Alberta Tattoo 2006 - any reviews?



## Michael Dorosh (22 Jul 2006)

As a "proud" member of the cast of this show, would be interested in any reactions to the show from members of the board that managed to attend, or to have worked GD or in the cast.


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## military granny (22 Jul 2006)

Mr. Dorosh I will place my review here later tonight, I will be at the evening show.


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## Gunner (22 Jul 2006)

military granny said:
			
		

> Mr. Dorosh I will place my review here later tonight, I will be at the evening show.



As will I.  The Edm Journal wrote a pretty good review of the event in Friday's edition.


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## military granny (22 Jul 2006)

the Edmonton Sun had a short write up as well.

The whole show is quite magnificent, with joy and sadness intermingled, snippets of local history (a replay of the Edmonton Eskimos hockey team in the 1923 Stanley Cup), dance and much humour, all the while honouring our fallen heroes


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## military granny (23 Jul 2006)

Mr. Dorosh

Absolutely great. The best show I have seen ever.


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## Gunner (23 Jul 2006)

It wasn't as good as last year and it seemed to drag a bit in the beginning but I enjoyed the theme of Vimy for the Tattoo storey.


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## Michael Dorosh (23 Jul 2006)

Thanks for the reviews; they don't seem to match the general thoughts of much of us who participated - volunteered or otherwise - though the "dragged" part does. They actually chopped several minutes out of the Tattoo after each performance - whittled the choir right out of it. Anyway, glad it's over and glad to be home..  A big thanks to all the guys from 1 CER and LdSH (RC) who helped with the Guard of Honour - you guys were aces.


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## Teddy Ruxpin (23 Jul 2006)

Well, for the effort that everyone went to (including "dragging" soldiers into the production, heh), I'm of two minds.  I love the tradition, uniforms and sounds of military bands so that part, as always, was terrific - but:

The crowd (comprised largely of seniors) never seemed to get engaged in the "story", although I'm with Gunner in saying that the concept was decent.  It was just hokey enough to be annoying and not hokey enough to be funny.  The "ghosts" (soldiers in winter whites on roller blades) seemed to confuse some people, but the kids seemed to get it even if their parents and grandparents took a while.  The gun run was great, but seemed tacked on at the beginning.  Even a brief explanation of the tradition behind it and what was about to happen would have helped the uninitiated.

I went to the Saturday afternoon show, at which there were perhaps 4000 people.  If the event is to continue in its present form, it will need to be promoted more aggressively (Albertans have no idea what a "tattoo" is) and revised to (1) pick up the pace and (2) spice up the performances.  9er Domestic - being a sarcastic type (which is why I love her) - mocked me incessently and had to be reminded that the Tattoo isn't an _Army_ production but that it is a civilian production that we assist.

Next up, my review of the Wainwright kitchen


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## Michael Dorosh (23 Jul 2006)

A Tattoo is traditionally done in front of a castle set, and the bands come out individually and "strut their stuff" in between military themed acts (rapelling, gun run, building a jeep out of parts and driving it off, stuff like that) and civilian entertainment (comedy, dance, singing) - the treat at the end is when the bands combine into a Massed Bands, and the finale is something special where all the brass and pipes come together for something truly climactic along with all the participants of the Tattoo.

This was nothing like that, but that isn't bad necessarily.  The concept of a story-driven tattoo is very original, and I like it on the face of it.  But this story went nowhere. Guy fights at Vimy Ridge, then goes to the Monument Dedication in 1936, and the story fades out after that. It's kind of a big "so what".   The whole show just seemed to be bands marching in, marching out, marching in, marching out, and they were massed from the start.  It had no pizzazz, instead of being a spectacle, a treat at the end of the show, the massed bands were basically cattle, moved in and out often as background rather than a feature in themselves. The whole tattoo could have been scored by the stage band over the entrance, really.  The hockey game is a perfect example - it was repetitive and the bands playing Hockey Night in Canada...over and over...were really kind of mis-used. Again, some nice concepts such as the inline skaters and the recreation of the Stanley Cup, but seemed flawed in execution and really kind of out of place as it didn't seem tied in to the main "story". It was a nice bow to Edmonton history, though. Would have loved to have seen authentic uniforms rather than just guys in Cadpat with their floor hockey jerseys thrown on but I don't control their budget, either.  At the least they could have found a way to put some logos on the shirts, there were only 12 of them.

Of the scenes that weren't cut, some seemed to serve little purpose to the story - guy stops in Quebec on the way to France, by the time Albert stopped in Halifax and England, that was almost a quarter of the running time, just getting from Canada to France - had he done something more interesting than just sitting at a table drinking, it might have been an Odyssey. As it was, it was just an excuse to get the bands to march in an out a few more times and add a song by a solo vocalist (which was well done).

The anachronisms in the photo support were painful to watch - photos of the Vietnam War labelled as Canadian, Korean War photos in the 1950s, CWACs on parade in the 1930s. I did like the way the scoreboard and stadium displays were integrated into the show - that was an excellent idea and provided great visual cues. But other cues were missed - the ghosts looked like sacks of flour - had they actually been in whitened uniforms, it might have been intuitive what they were - and the famous painting about ghosts at vimy was so blurry and indistinct on the scoreboard that if you weren't already familiar with the painting and what it represented, you'd be hard pressed to figure out what you were looking at.

I did like the scene with the surveyors scoping out the Monument, and the recreation of the Mother Canada statue was well done. Some of the scenes were quite touching, and combined with the right music, effective - the pipe quarter playing as the ghosts circled the surveyor was effective, as was his look back over the shoulder as he walked off. Other scenes seemed heavy handed and overblown.

I may be a little biased, as I was extremely - well, hurt frankly - for the complete lack of courtesy displayed by the producers to the re-enactment/Guard of Honour section. The uniforms were provided out of two private collections and not a single word of thanks was ever offered, even during the Saturday O-Group when the entire cast was assembled and several acts were picked out by name - the producers basically slapped each other on the back, thanked the drum majors and musical directors, and ignored the contributions of the Gun Run, the hockey teams - but thanked the General Duties personnel.  Weird.  They also had no interest in staging the action - I think they anticipated a Battle of the Somme thing where we all climb out of the trenches and walk slowly until half of us are killed. We decided to use section tactics (by 1917 they were in use, albeit a bit different than what we showed, based on the Lewis Gun of which we had none) and try not to make it "hokey" as Teddy put it.  They complained via a third party but had no interest in interacting with the two of us actually organizing the military scenes.  They bitched - also via third party - that we kept charging through the "barbed wire" - they didn't care enough to actually tell us that the weird lights projected on the floor was supposed to be barbed wire and we had no clue until someone told us!

When the two principal actors found that a hired costume company sent complete garbage, they came to the re-enactors who happily gave up some of their kit to ensure the leads were properly dressed. The two actors were gracious and fun to work with.  In addition to loans of private collections, I laid out 2300 dollars from my own pocket to acquire historically accurate uniforms which I've yet to be reimbursed for. In addition to much eye-rolling when trying to enquire about being compensated for the invoices I provided, I think I secured a lukewarm commitment to have a cheque cut...we shall see. I kept thinking I might get a thank you for the initiative but the two of us organizing the military stuff mostly were avoided in the corridors and made to feel as if we had done something wrong by simply showing up.

Still, I'd do it again, I think - the First World War soldiers came from the regs there and were great fun to work with; some were told they were participating, but all brought good humour, flexibility, and willingness to learn to the project and I was genuinely grateful to have professional soldiers to assist in such an undertaking.  The entire military contingent was that way, unsurprisingly - from the sergeant running the GD section, to the RCR LCol with the Ranger tab who liased with the production staff.

I think a stronger script and more effective use of the talent would be in order for the next show.  Given the hundreds of dedicated military and civilian performance professionals who commited themselves to the show, including the main characters, the dance troupes, the stiltwalkers and the choir who were cut, my opinion is that a much better product could have been presented, but that's up to the producers/script writers.

Oh, and to stir up the pot a bit more, I noted the senior Drum Major was from the Royal Regiment of Canada - though his band was not there.  A bit puzzling, until one remembers the producer, Larry Fullerton, was long time Drum Major of the 48th Highlanders of Canada - both are Toronto regiments...I have no quibble with "furriners" participating - the 48th Highlanders Pipes and Drums are well renowned and added much to the show, besides which the local military pipe bands were unavailable (and not of the same calibre as the 48th in any event). Interestingly the Director of Music was a Royal Marine, another ringer I suppose, though I don't know if any of the Alberta music directors were available, able or willing to paricipate.  

How's that for a bitch session? I'm glad people got something out of the performance; I just feel a lot of the hard work (and expense) by the military in support of the show went unappreciated by those in charge.  The Guard did get a compliment in the corridor by a gentleman who called us "superb", which made the whole thing worthwhile. Military Granny's comments are also appreciated. I guess in the end those are the opinions that actually count.


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