A cappella show should let vocalists loose to pull audience in
Gobsmacked!
(out of 4) Created by Nic Doodson, directed by Alexandra Spencer-Jones. Until March 25 at the CAA Theatre (formerly the Panasonic), 651 Yonge St. Mirvish.com and 416-872-1212 or 800-461-3333.
This live show piggybacks on the massive, multi-generational popularity of a cappella music, as reflected in the Pitch Per
fect movie franchise and the success of singing groups such as Pentatonix. As part of a multi-stop North American tour, it’s pulled into the CAA Theatre to coincide with March break.
It’s more of a concert than a piece of theatre, with no credited writer and virtually no spoken dialogue.
The glue that holds it together ( just about) is the amazing talent of the beatboxer Ball-Zee, who’s been with the show since it premiered at the 2015 Edinburgh Fringe. Not only can he create complex rhythms using his voice, other parts of his body and a microphone, he has a facility for simulated sound effects — pops, door creaks, water drips and so forth.
Around this has been crafted the slender premise that BallZee as The Engineer can con- trol and operate a cast of six singers with character names such as The Man, The Boy and The Lady.
Using mime and his voice, he cranks them into life by twisting imagined dials on their backs or over their heads — and then they’re off, performing new arrangements and mashups of contemporary pop and R&B songs and rock classics all the way back to the Beatles (music direction is by Jack Blume, who is also the show’s co-creator).
The 45-minute-long first act, once this setup has been established, has a relentless quality, with the entire cast laying into number after number. Joanne Evans’ performance of James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” and an impressive number combining Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” and Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” are first-act highlights, but the premise that the cast are somehow mechanized seemed all too literal. Alexandra SpencerJones’ direction has them rolling two sets of wooden stairs from one position to another, strutting around the stage in lines and striking poses (lots of dramatic finger-pointing); more varied and non-literal choreography (there is no credited choreographer) could have added nuance.
The second act is a considerable improvement, not least because it’s where Ball-Zee gets a long solo building to a crescendo involving two microphones and sounds coming out of his throat and mouth simultaneously. His infectious, mischievous energy and wide smile brought the audience alive. Singer Marcus Collins, impressive throughout, brings an improbably fitting soulful quality to a cover of Barry Manilow’s “Could it be Magic.”
The clear enjoyment and liveliness that the cast brings to the curtain call, as they acknowledge the audience directly and encourage singing along to “Hey Jude,” ends the show on a high note, but the show could be improved by that sense of engagement being there from the start.