Footprints Across the Heart

Latigo Flint has just returned from an incredible evening at the opera. Latigo Flint is the quickest quickdraw the world has ever known, not a reviewer of theater, but the production I saw tonight is most worthy of mention.

The opera, Footprints Across the Heart, tells the powerful and emotional tale of Gary, a lifelong Sasquatch seeker. It was perfection, start to finish, but some of the particular highlights include the high-energy opening number: Daddy Got a Promotion and it's in the Pacific Northwest, which mostly consists of the child actor playing Young Gary stomping around the stage shrilly singing: "Daddy Got a Promotion?!" To which his parents cheerfully answer in tandem: "And it's in the Pacific Northwest!"

This is followed by the sad, quiet duet with Young Gary and Mother titled: Don't Worry, You'll Make New Friends.

Who Goes There? Is a tense solo a bit later on, in which the adolescent Gary first begins to suspect something large and mysterious stalks the woods behind his home. What begins as curiosity for Gary slowly becomes an obsession.

The last song before intermission is the emotionally charged, We're to be Married Tomorrow and You're Going Camping Tonight? In which Gary tries to convince his beautiful bride-to-be that his bachelor party is actually being held in a remote section of the Wenatchee National Park, deep in the Cascades. ("And so then where are all your Groom's Men?" "My love, they'll meet me there.")

Gary's lie hung ominously in the air as we wordlessly shuffled to the restrooms and the snack bar. Every seat was re-filled several minutes before the act two warning lights flickered in the lobby.

Grief, heartbreak and despair spanning four decades awaited us in the second half. One man's life, and all its opportunity was slowly and systematically bashed against the mossy pines and dark fern glens of mid/northern Washington. Every dew-covered dawn brought with it the possibility for ultimate triumph. Every disappointed dusk raised the cost until at last the debt became so large it could only be paid by tomorrow's triumph.

Gary's unapologetic crossing of the point of no return was eloquently expressed in the duet he sung with his daughter titled: I Left my Reading Glasses at the Base of Glacier Peak What Time Today is Your High School Graduation Oh I'll Definitely Make it Back by Then.

The climatic multipart number found the elderly Gary sitting beside a campfire, reflecting on his wasted life. A woman loved him once, she's long remarried now. His children call him 'Gary', when they call at all.

This section was accompanied by inner-thought narration over the theater loudspeakers. A bold choice for opera but I thought it worked very well in this case.

Gary stared at his small blaze. He'd watched literally thousands of campfires die, and now this one gets to return the favor.

With dreadful acceptance, Gary exhaled raggedly and slumped over. Minutes ticked by and an electric expectation began to swell in the audience - something was coming, we could feel it. We weren't disappointed. Our eyes locked onto a slow movement in the shadows, stage right. We gasped when an old Sasquatch stepped out and moved with majestic sorrow to Gary's body. It knelt and gently caressed his face.

Trembling violins lead a slow-building orchestral surge. The Sasquatch sat cross-legged and started to gnaw its own foot off. The woodwind section joined the violins - "something incredible is happening," the oboes murmured. A battery powered pump somewhere in the furry suit leg started spraying red dyed corn syrup all over the first five rows. Grunting with pain and determination the Sasquatch continued to savage its ankle. The brass section joined in with a heart stopping charge. Then finally came a kettle drum roll punctuated by sharp timpani blasts, and with a triumphant scream the Sasquatch ripped through the last tendons and held the dripping foot high above its coned head.

In great pain, Sasquatch inched closer to Gary, placed his large, severed foot in the center of Gary's chest and wrapped Gary's limp arms around it. Every member of the orchestra was gasping for air at this point. Sweat and salvia streamed from their frenetic limbs and/or mouths. The Sasquatch raised its face to the heavens and in a guttural harmony, shrieked:

"Friend, here is your proooooooooooooooof!!!!!!!"

Then Sasquatch stood and solemnly hopped off stage.

The place just erupted. My dizziness yet remains. I won't even try to seek the adjectives to describe the feeling, I'm still much too overwhelmed.

If Footprints Across the Heart comes to an opera hall in your town, you must drop everything and see it, Latigo Flint implores you.

I only hope in my enthusiasm I haven't given too much away.