I saw this last night and the best way for me to describe it is a beautiful mess.
First, the beautiful part: The dancing is the absolute star of this show. The choreography is beautiful and the talent of the dancers is thrilling to watch. I’m in awe of the pure athleticism of that cast, who are dancing for the majority of the show. I really loved the music and, paired with the choreography and lighting, each of the songs are pretty spectacular to watch (especially in the first act).
The cast is extremely talented – Hannah Cruz delivers a beautiful performance (with my favorite song in the show, “Change” – creatives, PLEASE allow a moment for the audience to applaud this song!), Gaby Diaz and Karine Plantadit’s dancing is spectacular, and Terrence Mann is solid as always. The ensemble, as mentioned above, are excellent dancers and we got to hear many of their beautiful voices, as well.
Now, the mess: The book is, well…a mess. It’s hard to know where to begin. There were many moments where I felt like the stakes were so low that I couldn’t understand why these characters were acting how they were. We don’t really get to know the majority of the characters beyond simply the actions we see them take throughout the show (with maybe a couple of exceptions), which made it hard to understand motivations. I was often wondering why one of the characters was so upset or doing something in particular. The dialogue itself is extremely clunky and, whether it was the direction, the script itself, or the actors, many of the line deliveries came off very stiff (I think it’s clear that casting went with stronger dancers than actors, but I then think they needed a director who could better help guide them through the book scenes). The majority of the second act is spent basically seeing the characters grapple with the same issues we saw them dealing with in the first act. I absolutely think this could be cut down to a 90-minute show (I didn’t look at the exact time, but I think it was a full 2 and a half hours).
There’s also a total lack of clarity in the simple storytelling aspect, which I boil down to 2 things: the songs and who is singing. Although I loved the score, the lyrics (which I sometimes also couldn’t understand) just didn’t always fit. I only knew a couple of Kate Nash songs going in, but she has used some of her pre-existing songs in this score and, despite sometimes changing some lyrics to be specific to the show, they don’t always work. “Mouthwash,” for example, which is one of her songs I knew going in, was absolutely beautiful to watch (hearing a full cast sing it with the gorgeous dancing), but the lyrics just didn’t make much sense for the moment (also referring to things like mouthwash and floss felt very outside of the world of the show). I sometimes felt at the end of a song that I had just watched an amazing performance on “So You Think You Can Dance” – moving, beautiful – but as part of a larger story it didn’t always work.
There also seemed to be no rhyme or reason as to who was singing at any given moment. Verses and lines would switch off between the leads, Kate Nash as the narrator, and members of the ensemble. I know this stems from much of the story being told through the dancing of the leads and therefore needing someone else to sing at those moments, but because the leads would sometimes sing (and it felt like there was no consistency to who would sing what and when), I would often find myself searching for where the voice was coming from. I actually think it would be better if they just never had the leads sing at all – fully commit to it being either the narrator or members of the ensemble singing while the leads tell their story through dance. I think this would allow the audience to truly focus on what they we should be focusing on at any given moment (that is one quibble I have with the choreography – it sometimes feels a bit too busy and chaotic).
I liked the first act significantly more than the second – I think I found myself more willing to excuse the mess of storytelling and just enjoy the beautiful music and dancing in the first act. But, so much of the second act feels like rehashing of what we already saw (and I think the songs aren’t as strong in act 2) that I became more frustrated with the story itself by the end of the show.
It feels like there are many small moments that could easily be changed (and cut!) to clarify things, but if they hope to have a further life with this show, I think it’s going to have to be majorly reworked. Walking out of the theatre, I felt frustrated with the show as a whole, but grateful that I saw it due to the beauty of many of the musical moments.
