Oh, ouch. Wow. I understand wanting to try a challenging piece of theatre, but what teacher told her that this was a good selection?
And what makes it worse is that with good direction, kids actually can turn in good performances in difficult shows. Years ago, I went to see a friend of mine in a high school production of
Gypsy. I was in high school myself at the time, and my theatrical tastes were not nearly so refined then (ahem...), but I remember being rather impressed by the girl who played Rose. She started the final scene stalking around the stage as per usual, but then sat down on a random piece of scenery for most of the song, sort-of rocking back and forth while she sang. It was much more depressive than manic-- and probably easier for an 18-year-old to convey with any real depth. And it worked. Time has probably blurred my memory and I'm not sure how I'd feel about it today, but back then, having seen few productions, I thought she did a pretty good job.
If high schools are going to do such difficult shows, I wish they'd find ways to get the kids to connect to the emotions in the story, book and lyrics. I also remember a production of
Show Boat at a different high school that was chilling in all the good ways. My clearest memory of that show was of the hand-cutting scene-- the girl playing Julie looked genuinely terrified. I don't know what their director did to get such good performances from the kids, but it worked.
Has anyone found any surprisingly good clips of high school productions on YouTube? That might be a nice balance to these disasters...
"I hate musicals... People don't sing in real life."
"Well, maybe they should."
--Kiss of the Spider Woman (cut line)
