The Majestic Theater in Gettysburg officially launched the first performance in its exciting four-part Centennial Celebration on Thursday evening with a masterful showing of “the little tramp” Charlie Chaplin’s favorite silent film, “The Gold Rush.”
The screening — accompanied by the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra performing its world-premiere of the film’s reconstructed score — aptly honored 100 years of performance art at the restored theater as well as the orchestra’s 40th Anniversary Season performing music from early American theater, silent film and vintage dance.
A nonprofit organization that officially debuted at the Lincoln Center in Manhattan in 1988, Paragon has toured across 48 states and 7 countries overseas, been featured in motion picture and television soundtracks, and appeared at hundreds of performing arts centers and festivals worldwide.
Majestic Executive Director Brett Messenger preluded the evening’s performance with a warm welcome to what he described as a unique opportunity to experience Chaplin’s masterpiece — released the same year the theater opened — with one of the world’s most foremost silent film accompanists performing its score.
Messenger touched on highlights of the Majestic’s rich history, crediting founder Jeffrey Gabel, the theater’s many sponsors, and everyone present, with its success, and expressed his excitement about the continuation of a stellar season (notably the release of ticket sales for the theater’s Nov. 14 Centennial Gala) as well as the evening’s upcoming performance.
When Paragon’s charming founder Rick Benjamin entered to conduct the eleven musicians already in place onstage, he reiterated Messenger’s appreciation for everyone attending and revealed that not only was the score a world premiere, but the (black and white) photoplay to follow would be the first time the orchestra performed it with the film.
Just before the lights dimmed and “The Gold Rush” journey began, Benjamin encouraged everyone to react with sighs, hisses and boos at appropriate moments.
Famed British silent film actor Charlie Chaplin (1899-1977) wrote, produced, and directed “The Gold Rush” starring Chaplin as the Lone Prospector — an awkward hero who seeks his fortune in the mad Klondike gold rush in the late 19th century.
Set against a frigid and unforgiving Alaskan wilderness, the Lone Prospector encounters hardship, bears, blizzards, friends, villains and heartbreak in a visual symphony of iconic comic scenes — the famous boot-eating, “Dance of the Rolls,” and cabin-teetering-on-a-cliff sequences, among others — that manage to be hilarious while creating a sympathetic main character in signature Chaplin style.
The actor’s precise acrobatic movements, exaggerated physicality, and emotional vulnerability never fail to bring the story that explores universal themes contrasting the pursuit of wealth with the value of love and human dignity fully to life.
Paragon’s accompaniment blended seamlessly in a magnificent performance that drove home every emotion as the age-diverse audience — some seeing “The Gold Rush” for the first time — sighed and hissed and booed along in the dark.
After the film ended and the world-class orchestra took its bows, Benjamin asked the audience if they’d like to see PRO return to Gettysburg next year to overwhelming applause.
