Ok. I just got back from seeing the Bombay Dreams national tour at OCPAC. I went to the box office with my friend and we bought $15 seats waaaaay in the back. When we got in the theatre, I saw TONS of empty seats in all of the balconies and the orchestra. We quickly decided to run down to the orchestra and right before the show began, we found 2 empty seats in row N center. I was SO excited. My evening was off to a great start. Now for my review of the show.First of all, I really enjoyed this show. Its not a perfect show, but I had tons of fun watching it. The whole cast had lots of energy, (especially in the big production numbers). All the dancers and choreography was very together and I really loved the choreography. I will give a review of each number of the show, starting off with the opening.
At first, I was not pulled right into the action. I thought the opening was extremely cheesy and kind of stupid with the whole "Access Bollywood" thing. They made some stupid jokes and I didn't really like it. But once the show got rolling, I was very intrigued. "Bombay Dreams" was a pretty good number. It wasn;t too exciting, but it was alright. Sachin Bhatt played Akaash and he is a very talented actor. His singing and dancing were great and I liked him from the moment he came out. He did very well with "Like an Eagle" although I'm not a big fan of the song. "Love's Never Easy" was a very beautiful song and is easily one of my favorites in the show. Aneesh Sheth who played Sweetie sang this and was the most talented actor out of everyone in the cast. He had a beautiful voice and was very believable. Next was "Happy Endings" with Priya and Madan. This song is very forgettable and I didn't really like it. All I remember is that Reshma Shetty who played Priya didn't have a very good voice. But I was hopeful that maybe it was just that song. Next was the Miss India Pageant sequence. I really loved this whole thing except for at the beginning when more stupid jokes were said by Christine Toy Johnson who played Kitty DaSouza. "Lovely Lovely Ladies" was a decent number. Nothing that blew me away, although I did like Sandra Allen's (who played Rani) enterance when she came down on the moon. This girl is very talented and has a lot of charisma on stage. She has a great voice too and looked like she was having a lot of fun. When Akaash came on to sing "Bhangra" the energy in the cast got really pumped up and it made me want to start dancing. I really enjoyed this number.
The next number was one of my favorite production numbers in the whole show. "Shakalaka Baby" was GREAT! It had so much energy and I loved the choreography. I was not expecting that thing that all the girls were standing on to be a fountain. When water started shooting up, I was blown away. It was very cool. After this, Priya came out to sing another song ("Is This Love") Again, this was kind of a boring song and pretty forgettable. The reason why is because Reshma Shetty looked so bored while doing it. She had no charisma and no stage presence. She had a few pitch problems, but not too bad. I just found her voice to be very annoying. The act one finale let me down a little bit as the orchestra was just not together on it and it ended very weirdly. I don’t know how to describe it. Sorry.
On to act two. The opening of act two (“Chaiyya Chaiyya) was the best number in the entire show. By far my favorite and I’ve had the song stuck in my head all night. It had tons of energy and it was my favorite choreography out of anything. Also, it’s a very catchy tune. “Famous” was sung very well by Christine Toy Johnson and I really loved her voice. She’s a talented woman. “How Many Stars” was a nice song and nice to listen to. Reshma Shetty actually performed this one decently with Sachin Bhatt. “Hero” was sung very beautifully by Aneesh Sheth and Reshma Shetty. Reshma had some bad pitch problems in this song, but Aneesh Sheth (Sweetie) made up for it. He has a beautiful voice and this was such a beautiful song to listen to. I think they changed the name of the song “Closer Than Ever” to this though because I notice that there was no Closer Than Ever song listed in the program. The wedding sequence was great! I really loved this number. Great dancing and great music ( I loved the percussion in it) “The Journey Home” was such a great and beautiful song and it was very emotional. Sachin Bhatt did an awesome job with it. The finale was great and I was very happy when they brought the fountain out again to do Shakalaka again.
A couple people that I didn;t mention yet are Suresh John as Madan and Deep Katdare as Vikram. Suresh was very funny and made me laugh. He was a great actor. Deep Katdare as Vikram was decent. He was not believable to me and was not evil enough. The only complaint that I have about the show is Reshma Shetty. She is a very weak link and her singing, acting, and dancing are not up to par with the rest of the cast.
I LOVED the sets and costumes. This production was very pretty to look at and had beautiful scenery and lighting. The costumes were great too. I liked the whole “movie studio” concept behind it. Although at times, the lady with the clapper that came out and said “Bombay Dreams scene 77 take 1" got a little irritating. The orchestra was decent. I wasn;t blown away by it. There were many parts where they weren’t together, but overall they were good. There were parts of this show that were extremely cheesy and made me feel embarassed for the actos, but overall I thoroughly enjoyed this show and it was a great night at the theatre and a lot of fun. I recommend this show to everyone, although I wouldn;t pay top ticket price for it. Do what I did instead and buy the cheap tickets and find empty seats and move there. I am very pumped up from this show and will probably be singing Shakalaka Baby for the next few days. :)
Updated On: 2/22/06 at 02:59 AM
