Brigadoon hypericum and the heather on the hill
Gene Kelly, Cyd Charisse, Lerner and Lowe, Brigadoon,
One of my favorite stage musicals is Lerner and Lowe’s Brigadoon. In my opinion, it has some of their loveliest songs, but it is not a play you see performed very often.
MGM made a movie version in 1954. Produced by the legendary Freed Unit, directed by Vincent Minelli, it starred Gene Kelly, Cyd Charisse, and Van Johnson. It had costumes by Irene Sharaff and choreography by Kelly, it should be better than it is.
There are lovely movements, but on the whole, it is a bit long and rather forgettable, in my opinion.
That is too bad, because it is an interesting, unique story and some wonderful, atmospheric music. Brigadoon is a village hidden in the highlands of Scotland.
The village sleeps almost eternally, hidden in the mists, waking up only once every hundred years. Go to bed in 1750, wake up and it’s 1850. One more sleep and it’s 1950.
This unusual arrangement started in the 17th century, when the minister of the town wanted to protect his flock from roving bands of witches. He gave up his life in exchange for a miracle—the town would only come to life once a century. Between then, they would sleep peacefully. That way, no evil could ever really touch them.
There are some interesting thematic elements, a wonderful location, and there are some very sweet ideas about the power of true love. The ending gets me every single time (I would love to see this staged by a really high quality theatre company—it could be very powerful and beautifully done) and there’s an interesting critique of post-war materialistic society.
One of the highlights, for me, is the song, “The Heather on the Hill,” which has a lilting, lyrical melody, and features Kelly and Charisse dancing together. (Yes, I wish they had a more accomplished vocalist than Kelly, and he his dancing has some of his trademark stylistic movements that look overwrought today, but he’s Gene Kelly for heaven’s sake, so what are you going to do? Anyway, Charisse is marvelous.
So, I was really excited when I saw some heather on sale at Trader Joe’s early this spring (I am kicking myself for not snapping a photo of it when it was blooming!). I was also happy to see a variety of hypericum (aka St. Johns Wort) named Brigadoon.
These two plants are in my movie musical bed, near each other. The bed slopes a bit and the heather, of course, is at the highest point, which makes it, literally, the heather on the hill.
