PUT NEWSIES ON THE FRONT PAGE
Stop the presses! All those pickpocketing London street urchins from the British musical Oliver! have crossed the Atlantic and are now selling newspapers in Disney’s Newsies running at the Jubilee Auditorium until July 24.
They’re still dreaming of food glorious food and still wreaking havoc on the wealthy and privileged.
Newsies is based on the 1992 Disney movie musical which starred a 17-year-old Christian Bale as Jack Kelly, a New York newspaper boy who organized a strike when newspaper magnates Joseph Pulitzer and Randolph Hearst raised the price the boys had to pay for the papers they delivered, cutting their already meagre profit margin.
Both the movie and the stage musical are inspired by the 1899 strike by the newspaper boys in New York, which exposed the corruption of child labour laws.
I wager there wasn’t much dancing, singing and romancing on the real mean streets of New York back in 1899, but without its huge production numbers, Disney’s Newsies would fall flat.
It’s all the athletic dancing and macho hijinks in Disney’s Newsies that makes it such a spirited production and, though I may not be particularly enamoured of the musical itself, I was completely captivated and exhilarated by this top-notch travelling version of it.
It boasts a company of masterful chorus boys who appear to have boundless energy and are seemingly capable of defying gravity as they somersault, backflip, split and high kick their way through rousing songs like Seize the Day, Carry the Banner and The World Will Know.
The choreography by Christopher Gattelli is a love child of West Side Story and Riverdance with some amazing ballet moves and tap dancing thrown in to really dazzle.
Dazzle they did at the opening night performance and no matter how many times the dancers did the same moves, or variations of them, they received rousing applause and cheers because it really is the fanciest of fancy footwork.
When the newsies defy the establishment and try to take over the streets, Newsies veers into Les Miserable lite and it’s quite stirring.
In the role of Jack Kelly, Joey Barreiro proves himself a genuine triple threat performer with a voice that really sells his solo numbers especially when Jack dreams of leaving the dirty streets of New York for the wide open spaces of Santa Fe.
I’d love if someone could tell me what it is about Santa Fe that makes it a nirvana for musical theatre characters. Those street people in Rent also dream of escaping to the city in New Mexico in a very similar song.
Barreiro may be far from the best dancer on stage but he can definitely hold his own when required to join in, and it is his acting that makes his performance so special.
He can sell Jack’s emotions with every bit as much conviction as his songs.
Jack’s love interest is a cub reporter named Katherine (Morgan Keene) who becomes the newsies’ champion.
She’s one of those womenahead-of their-time characters, a kind of forerunner of the suffragettes and her no-nonsense approach to Jack’s initial flirting is so funny especially when she makes all the moves in their great duet Something to Believe In.
As the crippled newsie Crutchie and Davey, the brains of the movement, Andy Richardson and Stephen Michael Langton make lasting impressions but it is little nine-year-old Turner Birthisel as Davey’s brother who is the genuine scene stealer.
Aisha de Haas as Medda the dance hall madame has a gutsy number entitled That’s Rich.
Tobin Ost’s three tier scaffolding set is precisely what this musical needs to keep the action moving from the various streets to rooftops, basements and the offices of Pulitzer and Jeff Croiter’s lighting produces some very atmospheric moments as when Crutchie writes Jack a letter from the children’s refuge.
Director Jeff Calhoon stages the more intimate moments of the show with as much confidence as he does those stirring production numbers.