August 2, 2007
It has been remarked by jaundiced, grumpy old things that the phenominally successful High School Musical is a blatant result of "dumbing down". It's West Side Story meets Grease, set rather bizarrely in a high school where every student is from a prosperous middle-class family, no-one is experimenting with drugs or sex or brooding over slights with the intention of slaughtering their school-fellows with Daddy's gun. The worst problem any of these teenagers suffer is peer-group pressure not to expand their intellectual horizons or change their interests; peer groups, namely the Brainiacs, the Jocks, the Drama Queens and the Surfer Dudes, aided and abetted by various teachers, have taken the place of family, tribe, culture, race in the tolerant joshing that stands in for bitter feud in this story.
Why is something so safe, so bland, so utterly without edge of any sort, so successful? All I can tell you is this: it's a delight from beginnning to end, stuffed with superb songs with clever, thoughtful lyrics, and a blast-furnace of positive, feel-good energy. If you haven't got tickets, then read this and weep - the theatre management boldly decided to add a fifth performance to their usual run of four due to popular demand, and now they are all sold out. The audience, consisting primarily of little girls and their families, was in a fever pitch of excitement from the start. They all have the CD or the DVD of the engaging Disney movie, and they greeted the lights going up with an uncontainable scream of pleasure. A tiny, tiny girl, who couldn't have been more than three, was sitting in front of me - she had a plastic microphone clutched in her miniature fist and sang along to every song. That's how popular it is. But wouldn't afficionados of the movie find a stage production in which the cast were predominantly Oxfordshire school children a disappointment? No, no, no, nooooooo! It was definitely a different and wonderful experience to see this live on stage, and this production is quite extraordinary.
It's not that there weren't any flaws - there were serious problems with non-functioning mikes, which tragically marred several numbers; the two bad guys, Rebecca Jade Hammond as Sharpay and Howard Grater as Ryan, though talented, looked as though they could do with more breath control tuition in order to be able to handle the challenging song-and-dance routines; and the two appealing leads, David Wilson as Troy and Alexandra Democoli as Gabriella, were both excellent singers but looked rather too old to be in high school.
However, none of this mattered in the least. The singing was (mostly) splendid, and the dancing was absolutely first-rate. How on earth did choreographer Janine Pardo and her assistant Adam Margilewski manage to train and choreograph over two hundred children, ranging in age from seven to late teens, in ten days? It was an astounding achievement, and they deserve fame and fortune. Rightly scorning the use of a taped sound track, the production had splashed out on a superb live band. The magnificent energy and sheer joyousness radiated from the cast, poured off the stage, possessed the audience, and blew away any carping thoughts. The irresistible show-stoppers like Stick to the Status Quo and We're All in This Together were beautifully balanced by the gentle, lyrical Start of Something New, I Can't Take My Eyes Off You (which isn't in the movie!), and Breaking Free. The teens in the cast who had speaking parts were without exception very strong, and one was outstanding - Keith Henderson as Troy's best friend Chad (a superb dancer with a real athletic, shiny-haired presence on stage reminiscent of the scrumptious Zak Efron in the movie with overtones of the powerful, masculine grace of Gene Kelly).
Everyone left the theatre with brighter eyes, a spring in their step and a smile on their lips. It's not what you want the theatre to deliver every day, but once in a while, it's just glorious to have depth-free, good, clean, toe-tapping fun.
Why is something so safe, so bland, so utterly without edge of any sort, so successful? All I can tell you is this: it's a delight from beginnning to end, stuffed with superb songs with clever, thoughtful lyrics, and a blast-furnace of positive, feel-good energy. If you haven't got tickets, then read this and weep - the theatre management boldly decided to add a fifth performance to their usual run of four due to popular demand, and now they are all sold out. The audience, consisting primarily of little girls and their families, was in a fever pitch of excitement from the start. They all have the CD or the DVD of the engaging Disney movie, and they greeted the lights going up with an uncontainable scream of pleasure. A tiny, tiny girl, who couldn't have been more than three, was sitting in front of me - she had a plastic microphone clutched in her miniature fist and sang along to every song. That's how popular it is. But wouldn't afficionados of the movie find a stage production in which the cast were predominantly Oxfordshire school children a disappointment? No, no, no, nooooooo! It was definitely a different and wonderful experience to see this live on stage, and this production is quite extraordinary.
It's not that there weren't any flaws - there were serious problems with non-functioning mikes, which tragically marred several numbers; the two bad guys, Rebecca Jade Hammond as Sharpay and Howard Grater as Ryan, though talented, looked as though they could do with more breath control tuition in order to be able to handle the challenging song-and-dance routines; and the two appealing leads, David Wilson as Troy and Alexandra Democoli as Gabriella, were both excellent singers but looked rather too old to be in high school.
However, none of this mattered in the least. The singing was (mostly) splendid, and the dancing was absolutely first-rate. How on earth did choreographer Janine Pardo and her assistant Adam Margilewski manage to train and choreograph over two hundred children, ranging in age from seven to late teens, in ten days? It was an astounding achievement, and they deserve fame and fortune. Rightly scorning the use of a taped sound track, the production had splashed out on a superb live band. The magnificent energy and sheer joyousness radiated from the cast, poured off the stage, possessed the audience, and blew away any carping thoughts. The irresistible show-stoppers like Stick to the Status Quo and We're All in This Together were beautifully balanced by the gentle, lyrical Start of Something New, I Can't Take My Eyes Off You (which isn't in the movie!), and Breaking Free. The teens in the cast who had speaking parts were without exception very strong, and one was outstanding - Keith Henderson as Troy's best friend Chad (a superb dancer with a real athletic, shiny-haired presence on stage reminiscent of the scrumptious Zak Efron in the movie with overtones of the powerful, masculine grace of Gene Kelly).
Everyone left the theatre with brighter eyes, a spring in their step and a smile on their lips. It's not what you want the theatre to deliver every day, but once in a while, it's just glorious to have depth-free, good, clean, toe-tapping fun.