Brigadoon

[kiltedtom]

I got to watch one of the first musicals that I remember seeing, (on TV), as a kid. Brigadoon was for me my introduction to kilts. I know that the story is purely romanticism and fantasy, not to mention Hollywood in general, but I remember thinking it would be so cool to own and wear a kilt.

The movie also had two of my favorite stars in it, Gene Kelly (who should have worn a kilt at some time in the film) and Cyd Charisse, a star of great talent and beauty. I never understood why Gene Kelly had to go back to Brigadoon. Had I been in his shoes and Cyd Charisse was saying she was in love with me, I would never had left the place once I found it.

Who knows, maybe I will go to sleep tonight and wake up one-hundred years later in a place where love truly can work miracles just like in the movies. Hope you all have a great week ahead of you.

Tom

[McClef]

It's a great musical with a rubbish plot.

I do not blame Harry Beaton for resenting and trying to undo an arrangement which was not made with the agreement or consultation of the people of the village by a clearly mad clergyman who condemned them to this lunatic arrangement.

It is not a miracle at all, it is a condemnation to the unknown, the imposition of one man's will upon the innocent villagers which makes it more hell than heaven.

Nevertheless, great songs, great dances and it is more than Charisse or Kelly, it is the mysterious (and often uncredited) talent of Jimmy Thompson as Charles Chisholm Dalrymple and Hugh Laing as Harry Beaton, despite truly dreadful Scottish Accents

The kilts also are long before the feilidh bheag appeared!

[James Hood]

Agreed, the plot is sad.

Agreed, the music and dance is outstanding.

Agreed, the costumery is at best, quite iffy.

However, Brigadoon was the first stageplay attended by two teenagers who would later wed, and their attraction for things Scottish, continue. But she passed before she could finish the kilt she was making for her husband...and despite it being 28 years, since...when someone mentions Brigadoon, these eyes get moist.

Thank you for raising the subject of the musical stageplay / film. Best of fortune.

[McClef]

I am glad that it was able to bring people together and create precious memories.

To make it more than almost being in love.

[Benning Boy]

Brigadoon is a remake. The original story is a German fairytale. Fritz Loewe learned it as a child in Germany. To make the story into a musical for American audiences soon after the war, it was reset in Scotland.

[OC Richard]

Didn't know that, thanks for the info!

As a piper, I've played in numerous productions of Brigadoon over the years. It has enduring popularity among community and school theatres due to the attractive songs, sentimental plot, and showy look.

One song, Almost Like Being In Love, was a big hit by Nat King Cole and even today is a standard with many jazz bands. Modern jazz players attribute the song to Cole, evidently not knowing it's from a musical.

Of course the costumes used in the movie, and in most stage productions, are preposterous. They're Hollywood meets the 1822 Royal Visit to Scotland, and completely anachronistic to the mid-18th century, which is the supposed time period.

The dancing is pure Hollywood Musical.

I did pipe at one production that used authentic dancing: they hired a guy who is both a certified RSCDS teacher and Highland Dance teacher, and he taught the men who do the Highland Dance in one scene the correct steps to the Sword Dance, and taught the entire cast Country Dancing for the big wedding scene. A real Scottish fiddler, Colin Gordon, fiddled live on stage for the Country Dancing and I piped for the Sword Dance.

The oddest production I did was one with an entirely Samoan cast; they were fine singers, but you haven't lived until you've seen a stagefull of 18-stone Samoans in kilts doing fake Scottish accents.

[Mike_Oettle]

While I have perhaps seen parts of the movie on TV, I was introduced to Brigadoon when a friend of mine played the pipes for an amateur production in Pretoria back in the ’70s and I attended rehearsals with him.
There were pukka Scots on hand to help with the accents, and there were any number of tartans among the kilts worn.
Back then I had no idea of how anachronistic the costuming was, but I was fascinated by the kilts and the dialect.
The only flaw in the production was that the bridegroom was played by a Jewish lad who was very much a bagel (masculine equivalent of a kugel) and did not fit in with the rest of the cast. He resisted the pressure on him to speak Scots, had a distinct nasal twang in his voice and at one point pirouetted on stage in a kilt.
But the magic of it got to me, and every now and then I get quite nostalgic about it all.
There was a girl from a Scottish family with whom might easily have fallen in love, but I let the chance slip by.

[McClef]

Oy vey, oy vey, oy vey wi' Bonnie Jean!

Seriously though, a production of Brigadoon is open to gentle spoofs as the movie itself demonstrates and also to anachronisms.

But the central message that love can conquer all is still there, providing you aren't Harry Beaton of course. Not everything can be resolved to the happiness of all.

But that's life so they say. Many plots contain a contradiction.

[OC Richard]

There was a girl from a Scottish family with whom might easily have fallen in love, but I let the chance slip by.

Been there, done that!

Oh to be young and in love with a beautiful Scottish lass...