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Saturday, Aug 30, 2008
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High School, Disney style |
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| High School, Disney style | ||
| Disney's High School Musical by Miryam Gordon - SGN A&E Writer Original TV movie by Peter Barsocchini Directed by Linda Hartzell Seattle Children's Theatre September 14 to November 24 Yup, all your preteens will want to see this. I have to start by saying that. Your preteens will really, really, really, really like this. They probably have memorized every song, anyway, and maybe have the dvd of the movie, too. I guess I'm too far away from teenhood to really like the whole idea of this show very much. So, I have to try to critique around my lack of enthusiasm to give you impressions of the production, itself. The plot is very high school. Smart, new-girl and jock, popular-boy find themselves accidentally auditioning for the school musical. But she's got to help the science club win a contest and he's supposed to help his basketball team win its first championship, so all the geeks and jocks are against this idea of "acting". There's the requisite bitch-girl, who always gets the lead in every show, who is threatened by the fact that new-girl and popular-boy are actually good at singing! So, the whole school is basically against them for trying to get out of their stereotyped selves and try something new. Kasey Nusbickel plays the new girl, Gabriella, and Jason Kappus plays the jock, Troy. They are two very adorable young people who sing very well and have a nice chemistry between them. They are very caucasian and look like people who would be popular in high school, partly from looks alone. The rest of the cast looks a lot like certain Seattle high schools, with many more light faces than darker ones. I'm sure it wasn't at all intentional casting, but it was something that struck me while watching. So, it was perhaps unfortunate that two of the minority actors were playing the bitch-girl, Sharpei (Khanh Doan) and her brother (Don Darryl Rivera). From a performance standpoint, Don Darryl Rivera was great fun in his role, and fun to watch. Khanh Doan has a great singing voice, but seemed to push too hard at the bitch part, so Sharpei was a bit overdone. I have no idea if the script calls for the brother to be a budding Gay guy. Rivera seemed to imply his character's directions were going there. The actors I thought were most fun were the old people, the teachers. Jayne Muirhead was hysterical as the gong-banging Ms. Darbus, who even turns detention into time for theater exercises. John Patrick Lowrie was good as the coach/dad, pushing his son toward a championship he never won for himself. There were some good jokes written for us old folks to laugh at, which relieved some of the sighs about predictable plots. A stand-out was choreography by Kathryn Van Meter. There were some huge dance numbers and one fantastic basketball sequence that woke the whole show up. Other technical areas were less well done. There were all sorts of sound level problems with missed cues and mis-mixed solos and the lighting wasn't all that spot on, either. There were a couple of scene changes with scenery on wheels sounding so loud, it was like a wheelbarrow rolling through. None of that mattered to the preteeners who lined up afterward for a chance at an autograph. So, it's probably not up to you whether you have to take them. They've probably already told you what you have to do. For more information, go to www.sct.org or call (206) 441-3322. Emails commenting on reviews go to sgncritic@gmail.com. |
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