High School Musical earns an average grade
Theatre
The parents and friends who cheered the place down at Hamilton Theatre Inc.’s “High School Musical” gave great support. And that’s what family and friends ought to do.
After all, 26 young folks, some of them performing on stage for the first time, took on Disney’s popular musical about high school angst, teenage love and a battle between athletics and the arts.
In Disney’s musical it’s The Jocks vs. The Brainiacs vs. The Thespians. And they’re all being manipulated by teachers who amazingly don’t work together until the final bell.
“High School Musical,” based on a Disney Channel Movie certainly isn’t high class theatre. The music, by no less than 13 writers, is so predictable. So is David Simpatico’s simplistic book.
This means actors in this show need to be on their mettle to make the characters much more than cartoons.
And since these one-dimensional characters are basically coloured by Crayola crayons it would take a director with heaps of imagination to make this show more than stodge.
If a feel-good experience is all you want, you may well find “High School Musical” your cup of hogwash. But “Grease” was a much better musical covering similar terrain.
In pitting jocks against science nerds and some energetic theatre kids, “High School Musical” doesn’t delve into any serious issues. It’s just too easy to dismiss the whole thing as sentimental goo with a rah rah feelgood finale.
Well, “Grease” was written for adults and performed on Broadway, so it has gravitas. “High School Musical” was written for kids and born on the Disney TV channel. Big difference.
The songs here, from “I Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You” to “We’re All in This Together” are strictly vanilla. There’s no musical energy, passion or drive to ignite them to be more than musical mush.
The young people performing the show at HTI do what they can, but it helps so much if you are in a strong show to begin with.
You can’t really blame these neophyte performers, many of them are on stage for the very first time.
Now, if you read my columns regularly, you’ll know I don’t criticize young people who are non-professionals. They didn’t write, direct or choreograph this show.
So to them, bravo for taking such a risk. On the plus side there were some performances that were downright endearing.
Riley MacNab found more than the veneer of Troy, the troubled basketball dynamo who finds his inner voice,
Violet Gould matched him as Gabriella Montez, offering a pleasing stage presence as the girl who hears the music the same way Troy does. Max Kostash made a good Zeke Baylor and Matthew Carrabs had fun with the nerdy role of Jack Scott.
I don’t know why director Dustin Jodway cast a female (Hannah Byrne-Wolfson) in the role of Ryan, the gay fraternal brother of obnoxious Sharpay Evans (Brenna McPhee). It so upsets the balance of their relationship.
And speaking of balance, Eric Greene’s musical direction never helps to carry this show as it should. A small band on a shelflike platform above the stage just fades away. Yes, they were too loud for the show’s performers, but curiously, at the same time, they were held back so much the show was drained of energy.
The big cast numbers suffered from suspicious pitch problems and the limp choreography from Nikki Horvath had no pizzazz.
Bravo to Jodway for finding young men to tackle so many roles in this gooey show. It was unfortunate however, his staging had them sitting on benches and standing in straight lines for most of the evening. Lucky those benches were there right? Otherwise someone might have been forced to create some serious movement.
Jodway’s set and costume design was apt for the show’s high school setting, but would those Wildcats wear those ugly basketball uniforms every moment of the school day? Surely they had to be washed sometime.
I’ve seen “High School Musical” on ice. I’ve seen it on dry land. I’ve seen it in dinner theatres, at Theatre Aquarius and in other professional venues.
Ironically, the very best production of this musical I’ve ever seen was performed by students at Hamilton’s Westmount Secondary School. A hot cast and sharp stage direction caught the show’s comic satire. And isn’t that what it’s really about?