Now that I’ve had some sleep and time to process, I have to say that KPOP is an assault all senses in the best way.
Normally, I don’t laud shows that rely heavily on their production elements over the book/score, but here, the set, lighting, and sound design are of great service to the flashy and stimulating (though ultimately mechanical) environment that K-Pop is known for. They make GREAT use of the space for sure, and it feels very immersive. I don’t think the Circle in the Square has ever felt so large to me before. Special credit to the choreography, which was TIGHT and SYNCHRONIZED within an inch of its life. You could tell that they have been rehearsing that non-stop for a while. I hesitate to say that it even beats the kinetic energy and showmanship of MJ.
I mentioned the premise in another post, so I won’t reiterate it all here, except that it uses the filming a “Behind The Music”-style documentary as a framing device for the stories of three K-Pop acts. Here is where the show needs to be tightened and fixed a bit since it can be easy to lose the narrative thread given how they rotate between the acts. This is not helped by the fact that roughly half of the show is spoken or sung in Korean with no supertitles, so the use of context is relied upon heavily.
In terms of performance, the cast is uniformly excellent, but the standouts are Luna, who is not only a magnificent singer and dancer, but also one heck of an actress, and Zachary Noah Piser, who has a great character arc, but also one heck of a voice himself, especially during his Act I number, “Halfway”.
I’m pretty sure the Tonys would go ape over this show if it opened in April, but I’m not entirely sure what the audience will look like since this reminds me very much of “A Strange Loop” - a daringly new show that explores stories that most don’t/won’t understand, and gives the footlights to those stories to be told. I’ll be interested to see how it plays out over the next few months.
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