How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? - Episode 1

The CBC’s How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? is a reality TV talent competition unlike anything seen before from a North American television network. In the first place, the competition is in musical theatre, with the winner getting the lead in the Canadian production of Andrew Lloyd Webber and David Ian’s version of the classic The Sound of Music. In the second place, we are told in clear language what the producers are looking for: a light, natural sound.

What, I gotta ask, does Andrew Lloyd Webber (or anybody in musical theatre, for that matter) consider a “natural sound”ing voice? If the answer to this question keeps you up at night, you are in for one hell of a ride. If not, how involved can we get with a group of females, aged 18 – 30, who are naturals at acting like charismatic novice nuns?

But, hey, - natural sounding voices have dominated pop music since Sinatra dropped his Bing Crosby imitation, influencing young Robert Zimmerman to sing in Bob Dylan’s natural voice (that has never sounded anything like anybody else in Minnesota, even on Nashville Skyline), which made John susceptible to Yoko’s whispers, which took the heart out of the goofiness that is pop music’s greatest strength (Monster Mash is of higher artistic value than Smells Like Teen Spirit) and left the carcass ripe for the indignities of rap.

So I figure I’ll give HDYSAP a chance (as I already mentioned in the prologue, it’s shortened to Maria by some, which I don’t get at all. A perfectly valid reason for typing HDYSAPLM and I’m gonna go for Maria? I don’t think so.).

The Sound of Music musical director and HDYSAP judge Simon Lee is a grey haired British gentleman in his sixties with a Vanilla Ice hair cut and a face that combines the vulnerability of Marty Feldman in his prime with the animal magnetism of a young Don Knotts.

Mr. Lee knows what he’s doing and is a pleasure to watch because of it. Compared to the “I can’t tell you what it is, but I know it when I see it,” critiques characteristic of the Idol franchise, Lee and vocal coach/judge Elaine Overholt interrupt their charges with specific instructions during the auditions. For their part, the contestants are of a level of professionalism not typically encountered in the early stages of these types of things.

The editing is focused on the performances, with “getting to know the contestant” segments nearly non-existent. We are cutting down from 200 to 48 in the first five minutes of the show, so there’s really no other choice. Nevertheless, personality did come through. Here I’m thinking of the brunette with the bob in the black dress who, after learning she was moving on to Maria boot camp, came off stage flashing heavy metal hand signs. And, as a group, I am thinking of the dresses.

What was with the dresses, girls? I haven’t seen so many women in dresses since my high school graduation. You looked like sixties housewives. It’s like this weird twist in time. The movie came out in the early sixties and you guys unconsciously dressed like you would have been dressed if you were auditioning for The Sound of Music, season 1.

Four and a half minutes in, we get a 30-second montage of people auditioning, losing, winning and boom, we are down to 48 from 200. An establishing shot of the stone Victorian exterior of an abbey and we are inside Maria School. Ms. Overholt greets the finalists: “Welcome to the Olympics of singing.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Lee has returned to England, tapes in hand, to go over what they have so far with the capo di tutti capi. Mr. Webber is not impressed by the theatrical movements of many of the contestants, complaining that “someone has taught them that.” I find his reaction odd. I’ve seen some of your work, Mr. Webber. They are only doing what you had your heroines do in Evita and Phantom, don’t you know? I’ve got no problem with you wanting to do something different, but please – the person you suspect has “taught them that” is you.

We watch Lee and Webber go through the tapes and see Webber approve some and dismiss others. Inexplicably, the director (of the show, not the musical) fails to utilize this opportunity to start showing us some name tags. It robs us of our first opportunity to put an identity to at least a few of the many faces that are flashing across our screens. In the end, Webber says he sees 4 potential Marias out of the 48. He also uses this segment to do what a good producer does when he has handed the final casting decision on his leading lady to the general public: he prepares his defense.

“The one thing that an audience at home, when it comes time to vote, has got to remember is that it’s not necessarily the girl that they think is great on TV: are they actually going to be able to deliver the role of Maria on stage?”

Back at Maria school we finally start getting some names.

Curly haired Megan does Son of a Preacher Man for all of two lines before Overholt is all over her to “Stop performing,” meaning drop the Ethel Merman big Broadway moves.

Angle, a ringer for Valerie Bertinelli before she met Eddie, is next. She mugs her way through “For Papa, I will stay,” and is stopped by Overholt for, “acting: bad acting.”

Blonde Robin gets busted for not knowing the character to which her song is addressed. “Everytime you get up to sing,” Overholt instructs, “you must know who you are singing to. You have to know what this song is all about. If not, we do this…” Overholt smiles pluckily and swings her arms, “because we want to be loved.” Now that’s a good coach.

Overholt thinks Allie, who was one of the ones Webber said he liked, is “quirky and fun to watch,” and she is. But so is a good daycare teacher.

An inset with Robin talking to the camera says of Overholt’s coaching, “From the beginning of one song to the end you can see the changes. This is like a master class in singing.”

Stacey has a bit of a lisp. She tells us that in 2003 she had reconstructive jaw surgery that involved getting her jaw broken in 10 places. Poor Stacey – all that and she’s still got the lisp. If it had been up to Mr. Lee, she wouldn’t have made it to Maria School, but Overholt has assured us she can cure the lisp. Stacey wants to believe and gets kudos from Overholt for trying a song with a lot of S sounds.

Katie is an 18 year old ball of energy who does Let’s Hear it For the Boy and I think of Chris Penn, dancing to the song in Footloose, and what it must have been like to look good in your first big teen movie and then to get fat and ugly before the next one and to never look that good ever again. I probably would have drank and drugged myself to an early grave, too. Better to start ugly and stay ugly than be beautiful and lose it, I say. But that’s what all of us beautiful people say. Getting back to Katie, Overholt tells her, “You’ll never be bad. You’ll either be good or great.” Nice ANTM cut to a couple of catty looks from other competitors.

Kyla, maybe the prettiest girl in the bunch, is told to sit down after failing to convince Overholt that she understood her song (Cozy, Calm and Cool).

Dana tells the camera, “Not to be catty or anything, but you look around the room and say, ‘How could they be Maria?’”, then starts Son of Preacher Man off key, loud and harsh. How, indeed.

Frizzy haired Christina was another Webber favorite. We get no more than 15 seconds of her singing and it’s not enough to make much of a judgment.

After a bit from Overholt about letting go of the fear and stepping outside your comfort zone to find the magic, Day 1 of Maria Camp is over. Next morning, Lee is back from London. He introduces John Barryman, a.k.a. Dr. Who, an English matinee idol in the Tom Cruise mold. Barryman is the girls’ acting coach (when does their permanent coach arrive?) and the third and final member of the panel that will determine who goes on to the top 20.

His critiques during the acting segments are actually quite accurate. He spots that Nichole (to whom we have not been properly introduced) is indecisive with her hand movements and illustrates the importance of definite, clear movements on stage. With ball-of-energy Katie, Barryman dings her for mugging so much with the line, “Captain Von Trapp’s children,” that she sounds like she is implying that the children are prostitutes and available.

Janna is a plain woman who puts me in mind of the nuns that taught me throughout grade school. For the part of Maria, this is not a bad thing. She was also picked by Webber as one of his favorites. We get to listen in as she tells a group of the girls what the part means to her, and it’s more than a little creepy. “This is the perfect role for me. I grew up with this woman, learning about her. I want so much to be her and play her and come to understand her. I feel like I have the right look, the right age; everything they are looking for. If I don’t get this, what am I good at?”

Her performance opposite Barryman is a revelation. They play the scene as if they have been doing it for weeks. Amazing. If she doesn’t get the role, there will be stalking.

We cut to the girls sitting on the hardwood floor in a large, sunlit room. A pianist is at an upright and Mr. Lee sits beside him. He is informally running the contestants through their paces. A girl named Donna does a showboat turn, grabbing a song and singing it from the floor. Cut to the girls on chairs in what may be the same room, but this time Overholt and Lee and some folks we haven’t met yet are present. Lee is having the contestants do songs from Cabaret.

Stacey, Alyssa and Janel all try the title song and all fail to attack it the way Lee wants them to. But then something happens. Lee is working with Nichole and Marisa. He reminds them that it’s not just what he is telling them now – it’s what he has told the others before them. He pushes Marisa to “sound atrocious on some of it. You’re outside a strip joint.” It clicks. She hammers it out the way Joel Gray did, an invitation to join the damned. By song’s end she is in tears and so are we. Lee tells her, “Electric,” and it was.

At the morning meeting at the start of day 3, Lee asks ten girls to stand up. The eliminated ten are:
Nicole Glover
Rebeckah Gubbles
Kayla Robinson
Megan Skidmore
Larissa Bathgate
Amy Hodge
Sarah Putnam
Sarah Harries
Katherine Patrick
Sarah Gibbons

Boy, this show does not focus on the suspense element of the eliminations in the slightest. It's like the anti-Deal or No Deal.

Day 4 the survivors work on harmonies. They are working as a 38 member choir in no time. God I love humans when they do something they know how to do.

On the 5th and final day Dana, the catty one who didn’t have the chops to back it up, has somehow made it through and Overholt has her working at being real. To the camera later, Dana admits that she feels like she is hanging on by her fingernails and we finally see the vulnerability Overholt was trying to pull out of her. A girl named Jennifer is less well prepared than the other girls and when Overholt calls her on playing the whole thing as one note, Jennifer is the first contestant we’ve seen try to make excuses. Overholt isn’t sympathetic. “I know you’ll get over this and do the song well. Now let’s try it.”

The elimination down to the final 20 is the closest the show has come to building suspense for an elimination. As the girls sing The Hill Are Alive, Simon Lee walks among them, his hand on a shoulder breaking a heart. Again the director misses another chance to help us identify with the girls, sending anonymous girls back to their anonymous lives. And even with that, they don’t even name all of the ones who stayed. In voice over we are only told the names 7 of the top 20: Dana, Donna, Jennifer, Kyla, Tamarra, Jayne and Stacey.

All told, my only complaint so far is the show’s unwillingness to use last names. These WASPs are hard tell apart.