Theatre Review -- Bright Star (Musical) -- 2018 tour

I first learned of Bright Star when I read through the Tony nominees back in 2016. All the hype was surrounding Hamilton at the time but when I listened to the music from both shows I found that I enjoyed them both but I was drawn more to Bright Star. The soundtrack was infectious and fun and the story appealed to me. As 2016 closed out, Hamilton became the sensation and Bright Star faded from view. I thought very little about it until the summer of 2016 when I was surprised to learn that a local Utah Theatre would be welcoming Bright Star as part of its National Tour. I was naturally excited and swooped up a pair of tickets as soon as they were available.

(NOTE: If you're in Utah when I post this, you've got a little less than a week to see the show at Pioneer Theatre. The tour will continue through the Spring and Summer ending (appropriately?) in North Carolina in June. For tour dates, click here.)

Bright Star is a musical about love, loss, family, traditions, pain, hope and the nature of humanity. It's set in North Carolina with two storylines, one set in the 1920s and the other in the 1940s. The music is in a fun bluegrass style featuring a small "orchestra" sawing away on violin, banjo, mandolin, guitar, bass, accordion, cello, piano and drums. The instruments (except for the drums) are featured onstage in a wooden cabin constructed with partial walls and on a moveable bass so the band can move around throughout the scenes and bring extra energy and emotion to moments in the play.

The show focuses on the primary female lead Alice and shows moments of her life in the 20s and 40s. We meet her parents and the male love interest Jimmy Ray (along with his father). In the 1940s we follow the other male lead Billy as he works to figure out his life now that he's back from the war.

Theatre Review - Peter and the Pirates

Ah, Peter Pan. The touching and heartfelt story of the boy who wouldn't grow up and the children who came along for the ride. When we got tickets for the production of Peter and the Pirates at The Off Broadway Theatre, I knew that it wouldn't be a straightforward production of Peter Pan. The OBT is known for their cheesy, farcical, tongue-in-cheek presentations. Still, the title didn't suggest anything too off the wall and the poster definitely depicted what I would expect from Peter Pan, so part of me wondered if they were actually going to "play it straight" and just do the standard Peter Pan story.

I hadn't had a chance to look in my playbill as the play began so at first I thought the child actors were mispronouncing names due to trying too hard to affect a British accent. I quickly realized that they were in fact calling the boy who wouldn't grow up by the name "Peter PUN." Now I understood...and with that, the wordplay was underway.

We spent the next ~2 hours on a fun-filled slapstick adventure with Peter Pun and his friends from Everclever Land as they fight Captain Crook and his henchmen save Sego Lilly and have a pile of other adventures. While all of the characters were definitely taken to the limit in terms of humor and fun, the most outrageous stretch was Peter's fairy companion, now named "Jingle" and portrayed by a large middle-aged muscular man with a mullet, tutu and multi-purpose tool belt.

There were plenty of absolutely cheesy and groan-worthy plays on words such as the pirates pulling out the "Gatorade" to save the Captain from the crocodile. Most of the wordplay was lost on the younger kids but everybody laughed up a storm at the great physical humor such as the pirate who ends up sword fighting against the handrail leading up onto the stage…and losing.

The acting was great. There were a number of times when lines were forgotten or props or costumes slipped off unexpectedly, but the cast and crew all handled these slip ups wonderfully. It probably helps that many of them are regular participants in the theatre's improv show. With that in mind there were a few times where I wondered if some of the lines were part of the script or if the cast members were ad-libbing. The jokes and humor were still hilarious but the lines seemed to catch some of the other cast members off guard at times and led to a few unintentional giggles.

Theatre Review - Curtains

Over the weekend my wife and I went to see our local high school put on their spring musical. They were presenting the relatively new show "Curtains." I had heard a couple of songs from the play before and knew the very high level premise but didn't know a whole lot about it.

The basic idea is that we're watching the backstage goings on of a musical being produced in the late 1950s or early 1960s. Our play starts during the finale of the opening night in Boston. After the final number, the cast takes their bows…and the leading lady drops to the floor in a heap. A scene or two later, a detective appears on the scene and lets the entire cast and crew know that they are all suspects in a homicide investigation. The detective lets them know that nobody is allowed to leave the theatre until the mystery is solved. He also lets them know that "the show must go on" and he doesn't want to interfere with rehearsals or preparations. In fact quite the contrary, he reveals himself to be an avid lover of musical theatre and wants to help them with the show in any way he can.

The play is a witty comedy filled with lots of excellent writing and situational comedy. There are multiple love triangles or secret romances throughout the cast. Eventually things turn darker as blackmail is uncovered and more murders occur. A lot of the humor comes in the strange balancing act of getting the murder mystery solved while also trying to revise the show to make it a success. Especially funny is the way the detective alternates between his desire to solve the crime and his stronger desire to improve on the show and be a part of show business.

This High School production was well cast, well directed, well choreographed and well produced. The show was directed by Jim Christian the theatre professor from a local university. Jim has written and directed shows all over the country and he does a fabulous job. The local High School directors, producers, choreographers and other adult talent also did an excellent job as shown in the overall quality of the show.

Theatre Review - Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

I was lucky enough to win a pair of tickets to Sweeny Todd produced by the Musical Theater Program at my local university. I knew the basic premise of the musical but had never seen it before (also hadn't seen the recent movie version due to my personal avoidance of "R" rated films). I was a little nervous that it might be over-the-top gruesome but went into it optimistically hoping for "tasteful" murder (is such a thing possible). I was especially hoping for it to be "toned down" since I was taking my lovely wife and she is definitely NOT a fan of over the top horror, gore or gruesome.

I've been to a couple of plays up at the University but this was my first time in Studio 115. It's a smaller "black box" style theater with a thrust stage where theatre seats wrap around 3/4 of the stage. It probably seats about 100 people. The stage jutted way out into the middle of the auditorium and the props were fairly minimal.

In the center of the stage was a slightly raised platform with a couple of chairs situated around an elevated black coffin. At the far end upstage were some raised platforms acting as steps up to a bridge-like platform extending the length of the room. On this platform sat a lone chair next to a table with various small items (later revealed to be razors, shaving bowls, etc). Under the table sat a handful of metal buckets. Behind this raised platform hung floor-to-ceiling semi-opaque plastic sheeting as though in preparation to catch and block blood spatter…sort of an ominous prospect. Throughout the play there were a few additional small props brought on at times and a couple of chairs moved around but generally that was the extent of the props and scenery. It was very minimalistic which I felt added to the creepy vibe.

Sitting in the central area just a bit behind the coffin was an old-fashioned wooden wheelchair complete with an emaciated and sickly looking hospital patient with a bandage on his head and wrapped in a straightjacket. At various corners and edges of the stage were additional cast members each with a frantic, nervous look in their eyes and often twitching or glancing suspiciously around. Everybody's face was painted pale and white except for sporadic pock-marking or sores. Everyone's eyes were surrounded by a deep black giving them all the appearance of dead or near-dead.

Theatre Review - See How They Run

Last week my wife and I took in a play at CenterPoint Legacy Theatre in Centerville. We've enjoyed a number of their musicals and larger plays over the past years in their Barlow Main Stage but I didn't realize until recently that they have a smaller "black box" style theatre in their Leishman Performance Hall. They are currently running a production of Phillip King's See How They Run.

I had seen See How They Run 20+ years ago at another theatre and had a lot of fun with it so I was excited to get the chance to see it again. The play is a British comedy filled with tons of farcical comic situations. It's set entirely in the main living/sitting room of an English vicarage and has a moderately small cast made up primarily of a vicar, his wife, their maid, a gossipy nosy neighbor and a surprise visit from an old friend of the vicar's wife. By the end of the play we have another vicar, a Bishop (the wife's uncle), a Russian spy and a bumbling police sergeant.

The first act of the play is a little slow moving as it sets up the various relationships and introduces us to the nature and quirks of each of the characters. There's a fair amount of verbal humor and wordplay but the play really kicks into high gear by the second act when we get plenty of physical humor and tense situations. Two characters lose their clothes and spend a while running around and around the set trying to find them. Other characters are continually locked in the closet or thrown out windows. The characters most "in the know" (the wife and her old friend) are particularly funny as they try to explain the situation to the other characters all the while keeping up some semblance of respectability. The straight characters do an excellent job of being confused yet trying to catch up with the plot without being overtaken by the silliness.

Theatre Review - Syracuse City Arts Council - Into the Woods and Before Ever After

Back in the days when my wife and I were first dating we took a number of road trips. And road trips always included music. On one of those trips, she put in her Into the Woods soundtrack. I hadn't heard of the musical previously but the music and the story were a lot of fun. Since then, we've seen the play together a couple of times. But this past weekend I was lucky enough to win tickets to take the whole family to see it.

Living in Bountiful at the south end of Davis County we have our own theatre community going pretty strong. So I wasn't familiar with the Syracuse City Arts Council. The Council itself has been around for a number of years supporting the arts in west Davis County. They have an orchestra, provide concerts, summer movies in the park and, of course, an annual musical. This year the musical was Into the Woods.

Prior to the main musical they had a Sondheim Musical Revue cast entirely of youth (ages 6-18 I think they said) called Before Ever After. More than just a bunch of kids singing songs from Sondheim this Revue was set up as a story taking place before Into the Woods featuring younger versions of the characters from the play to follow. There was some great youth talent involved in singing, dancing and acting. The director/writer took a bunch of classic Sondheim songs from other shows and integrated them into storytelling that made sense in the Into the Woods world. It was creative and fun.

Before long we transitioned into the main musical, Into the Woods. If you don't know the story, the idea is that we're set in a world of fairy tale mashups. We have a place populated by Jack (of beanstalk fame), Cinderella and her family, Red Riding Hood (and of course her Granny and a Wolf), Rapunzel, a couple of princes, a Baker and his wife, and a Witch. The story involves the adventure of these characters going "into the woods" on a variety of quests (Jack to sell his cow, Red to go to grannies, Cinderella to go to the ball, the Baker to get spell ingredients for the Witch). They interact with each other and other frights. There's a lot of fun humor as well as many overarching storytelling elements that add morals and thought provoking ideas to the tale.

Theatre Review - Wicked

About 3 years ago, my wife and I had a blast going to see Wicked with some friends as it toured here in Salt Lake as part of the Broadway in Utah season. So when it came back this summer, I decided we should really see it again. Last time we had seats down on the main floor so this year I decided we'd do balcony seats.

As expected, the show was fabulous. For those unfamiliar with Wicked it's both a "prequel" to the Wizard of Oz story as well as telling the story from a different perspective. It's based on Gregory Maguire's book of the same name and it focuses on the "Wicked Witch of the West", her life story and what made he who she is. The musical modifies a number of key elements from the book and the result is a more family friendly musical (the book is for more mature readers). The play still maintains some of the political commentary and action from the book but it does so in a way that felt a bit toned down.

The music in this show is fabulous and emotionally stirring. Elphaba (the Wicked Witch) has some amazing songs that are just powerful. At this touring show we had a fabulous Elphaba who really poured her emotion into the songs to make for a wonderfully vibrant performance. Glinda (the Good Witch) also has some fun songs and she did a great job with them but I thought she did an even better job with the comic acting. The play includes a lot of humorous banter between the characters and Glinda's character has some hilarious scenes that were played very well in the performance we saw.

Being up in the balcony, we had a different perspective on some of the scenes. In some ways I think we were better situated to experience some aspects of the show. I felt like I had a better vantage point for seeing some of the crazy acrobatics of the Winged Monkeys. And it was especially fun during the "Defying Gravity" scene to have Elphaba fly up to be eye-to-eye with us for her dramatic and powerful finale to the first Act.

The show is in Salt Lake for another couple of weeks and then it continues on. Tickets are a little pricey as compared with a trip to the movies or some other recreation. But this play is a fabulous, high quality experience that I can definitely recommend. If you have the chance to see it, you should really jump at it.

Review - Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

Last Saturday we gathered up the kids and made a trip to the theatre to watch Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. We've had the tickets for a couple of months now and the kids have been looking forward to the show for a while and reminding/asking us about it for the past few weeks. This was my first "full scale" production at Center Point since it opened this past spring.

As a family we've enjoyed the movie musical version of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers for many years. Somehow we've managed to keep our kids growing up in the 60s and 70s in many ways. They're overjoyed to watch the cheesy dance numbers and overplayed romances coupled with melodramatic scenes of anger and laughter.

As we waited for the lights to dim, we read the playbill and looked over the cast. Based solely on the headshots, there were a couple of roles where we were worried that maybe we got someone not as well suited for the part. Let that be a lesson to us to "not judge a book by its cover." I'm not going to say who we were initially worried about because from start to finish every cast member did a fabulous job and was superbly cast.

The core leads (Adam and Milly) had great voices and stage presence and also had good chemistry (and romantic tension) between them. Each of the brothers and the brides were great as well and each couple seemed very well paired in terms of personality, physicality and general interaction. They all seemed to really meld well together. Our cast had one VERY acrobatic brother who astounded us with backflips, twirls, handsprings and more, all of which were woven well into the choreography. It definitely made me think of some of the hijinks from the movie musical of this play and others from the same era.

The costumes and sets were fabulous. Neither the set nor the costumes were elaborate or over the top (in fact, they were downright minimalistic at times) but they really helped set the mood and the environment without detracting from the acting itself.

If you haven't yet heard or seen the story, I'll try not to spoil it for you...but the basic idea is that a rancher with 6 brothers decides he needs a wife to help put his house in order (do the cookin', cleanin', etc). He finds the gal for him and things might turn out for happily ever after if not for the fact that he's far too chauvinistic for his own good and she's a fiesty woman who wants to let him know that her place isn't behind him, but beside him. In the especially chauvinist songs/scenes from Adam, the actor did a great job portraying the emotion and prejudice towards women in general to the point that I really felt uncomfortable for him. I was really drawn in to the tension and the emotion of the play...which was a great thing.

This play is just a lot of fun overall so I came to the theater expecting to be entertained and to enjoy the show. I left feeling like Centerpoint has gone above and beyond the level of talent and production value from their previous location/theatre/etc. Their prices increased a little bit with the new theater which made me a little sad, but the production value seems to warrant the increased price. I personally would still like to see the price drop a little bit back to "community theater" prices, but that's because I'm a cheapskate.

The play has one more week before it's done and I can definitely recommend that you go see it if you have a chance. And if that's not enough prep time, I'll put in recommendations to keep Centerpoint on your radar and check out one of their shows in the future.


4.5 out of 5 stars

(cast images shown are from Centerpoint Theatre's facebook page)

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Review - The Scarlet Pimpernel...in the Park

It's funny...when I first heard the soundtrack to the Scarlet Pimpernel musical years ago, I wanted to see it. Sadly, I missed out on any tours that came anywhere close to Salt Lake and it looked like it might be one of those I wouldn't ever see. And yet, I have now seen it 3 different times in the past year...at Hale Centre Theatre, Viewmont High School and most recently at the Murray Arts in the Park production.

Since I'd already seen the play twice recently, I probably wouldn't have purchased tickets to the Arts in the Park version...but since I won them, I was super excited to check it out.

Outdoor venues for plays leave me a little nervous. I've seen some places that do a great job. In fact, at the Utah Shakespearean Festival, I prefer their outdoor theatre to their indoor venues. But generally speaking, outdoor theaters have left a lot to be desired. I hadn't ever been to Murray Park, so I wasn't sure what to expect, but I didn't go in with overly high expectations for the venue.

The seating wasn't as good as indoor seating, but it was better than some of the concrete benches I've had outdoors before. We were placed on metal bleacher style benches which (fortunately) had back support as well. There was sufficient leg room and good elevation. They had decent lighting both for the stage and for ambient lighting, though perhaps they could benefit from a couple more high poweroverhead lights for the end of the night. The sound system was good and made for adequate listening experience...as long as the performers had mikes and their mikes were on. There were a few minor characters who had no microphones but had small solo lines and their lines were lost in the night air. There were a couple of times as well when the mikes were turned on too late for some of the primary characters. Audio problems like that are troublesome indoors but can be more so outdoors where there is more ambient noise and distraction.

Overall, the amphitheater was good and made for a fun experience. Even though the kids were a little fidgety (especially towards the end), I somehow felt a bit more relaxed about having them shuffle back and forth on the empty bleacher next to us (though I did still try to keep movement and noise to a minimum).

The production was well done as well. The actors were well cast and did a great job. There were one or two who seemed a bit nervous or inexperienced on the stage while there were others who completely hammed things up and were a ton of fun to watch. In both cases, these distracted somewhat from the primary characters on stage at the time...the hamming up and overacting came off as endearing and fun rather than as something to avoid.

Their stage was nice...a fairly average stage with good space but also with some creative use of wings and other areas off the stage proper. The orchestra is placed above and behind the main performance, which was kind of cool as we could see them better than in some venues. The setting, costumes and props were a lot of fun as well. As we arrived, Andrew saw some of the jail set sitting against the wall outside and we snapped a picture with him behind bars.

In the end, it was a great night and a lot of fun. The performance is general admission and priced at a community theater price which makes it accessible for family outings. They have a snack bar complete with grill so you can make a dinner outing as well (and the kids were overjoyed at the leniency in letting the goodies be taken to our seats).

Since it's outdoors, they didn't start the show until 8 PM which makes it a late night for young kids, but it was still fun. I'll have to keep an eye on their roster for future productions and perhaps take the family out there again.

And if you're a Pimpernel fan, the show is playing for another ~5 days so hop on down and take a look. It's not "professional broadway style theater", but it's well done and definitely a recommended community theater venue with professional flair.


3.5 out of 5 stars

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Review - The Scarlet Pimpernel (musical)

It's High School Musical Theatre season and so Lynette and I took advantage of the opportunity to go see The Scarlet Pimpernel at Viewmont High School. We've enjoyed the story (and the movie) for years. When it was turned into a musical in the 90s, I picked up the soundtracks and we've really enjoyed listening to it. There are some great songs in there. Last year we went to see it performed at Hale Centre Theatre and absolutely loved it. So when we heard that Viewmont was putting it on this spring, we decided we must see it again.

Viewmont always does a great job with their musicals. Their choir teacher has a great overarching vision for what she wants to accomplish and she works hard to ensure that vision comes out to meet everyone's expectations.

As we walked into the front of the school, we were greated by a cool display with antique desks, maps, documents, a miniature guillotine and more. Inside the front hall was a larger than life marquee of sorts...a huge sculpted (?) pimpernel below the play's title. The lobby looked great.

We settled into our seats and began reading the playbill to discover that this is the final year for Ms Maguire, the choir director. She certainly made sure she ended her musical career on a high note.

Pimpernel is a fabulously fun musical with plenty of great male and female roles as well as ambitious design needs for costumes and sets. The music is stirring and the acting ranges from comic to somber to romantic to action-filled.

I was very impressed with the scale and nature of the sets and the costumes as the first few scenes were revealed. The quality of the work was exquisite and vibrantly engaging to the eye.

The actors were all well cast. The leads had great voices and great stage presence and all appeared very comfortable on stage and working with each other. The secondary roles were also good as were the members of the ensemble/additional characters.
The choreography and general stage direction was well done and kept the pace and the fun of the show running smooth throughout. There were a lot of very subtle jokes and bits of humor that required good coordination between the cast and these were all well done.

The music presented was great and very well performed. I was a little bummed to see that there was (what appeared to be) professionally hired players rather than solely using the talent the school had to offer. I'm not entirely sure of the situation and I could be misreading what is presented in the playbill but for a high school production, it seems wrong to outsource some of the talent rather than letting the students have every opportunity to contribute. Perhaps all of the players were students but just categorized differently?

My only complaint with the entire presentation is a very minimal complaint and one which I'm sure was a conscious decision on the part of the production team...that of the 'nature' of the voices. Being set during the French Revolution and with French and English characters, most of the cast were attempting to affect some kind of accent or other. The French characters each spoke with distinctive French sounds and the English characters all spoke with rounder sounds. My problem wasn't with the accents per se, but with the way the voices changed as a result...it seemed that as part of speaking with these accents, the characters also tried to speak deeper, bolder, more pronounced...which sounded slightly awkward to me.
 
Their accents were great, but the way their voices maneuvered while speaking made the conversation feel unnatural. What was interesting was that in some cases they tried to carry this accent over into their singing...and in some cases, the affected voice disappeared during a song to enable me to hear what their natural speaking voice was like. Honestly, I would have prefered the more natural sounding voice as it would have made the conversations feel more natural. It wasn't awful and generally it wasn't too distracting. There were a couple of songs where the accent/voice changed partway through, but overall it was alright.

In general, this is a fabulous play and well worth seeing if you get the chance. The story is tons of fun and the transition to musical stage is great.

In specific, Viewmont did a wonderful job with this production. They have so much talent and passion at that school both from the students and the faculty...not to mention the contributions that I'm sure happened from parents and other members of the community.

While this production has now ended, I can definitely recommend that you go see Pimpernel if you have the chance...and if you happen to have the chance to see Viewmont put on a musical, it's an experience well worth seeking out.


4.5 out of 5 stars

NOTE: Photos above are from the VHS Pimpernel Facebook page. I claim no personal ownership.


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Reivew - A Tale of Two Cities (the musical)

My wife and I just returned from seeing A Tale of Two Cities over at Hale Centre Theatre. When I saw this play on their upcoming season, I really wanted to see it. I'd recently read the book and loved it and was hopeful that the play would be as engaging and entertaining. Generally speaking, it was.

Taking such a huge novel as Tale of Two Cities and turning it into a 3 hour play has got to be a difficult task. As an interesting added bonus at our showing of the play, the author of the Book(Script...not the novel...that would be Charles Dickens, of course), Music and Lyrics, Jill Santoriello, was attending the show along with her Broadway producer. As such, we got a brief introduction to the show's trip to Broadway amid the economic recession. Jill Santoriello had a vision for a Broadway show and tirelessly worked to write the entire script and the music and lyrics herself. On the recorded soundtrack, it mentions some collaboration with Frank Wildhorn on one of the songs (which is cool, as Wildhorn does some great stuff), but otherwise, it looks as though this was a work of passion on behalf of a single person for many years. And her work paid off.

As per usual, I was highly impressed by the amazing production value that Hale Centre brings to their shows. The sets were amazing and I'm constantly amazed at how much they manage to accomplish so much in such a small area. The stage itself isn't very large but it has an amazing fly system with fabulous hydrolics/lifts/turntables/more that allow for very rapid scene changes as well as great use of movement and layered stage elements to provide added depth and motion to every scene. I absolutely love what Hale is able to do with their stage.

In addition to the great stage and set, the casting tonight was great. Sidney Carlton definitely steals the story and he was very well cast to be (at least from our point of view) the most powerful and relatable character. The Saturday cast Sidney has a fabulous voice and a great stage presence. The other major characters (Darnay, Lucie, Cruncher, the Defarges, Lorry, Pross, and Barsad) were equally fabulous. Even the young kids did a wonderful job.

The script had some great writing that had the crowd laughing frequently through the first few acts. Laughs continued to come as the show drew to a close, but the more serious and somber nature of the story tended to muffle some of the laughter. The jokes were well presented and the interactions between characters were quick and witty and a lot of fun.

The music and audio were also great. I'm not sure if we were sitting beneath a speaker or what, but there were times where it felt like the music was overwhelming the singing, which was troublesome at times. There also seemed to be too many "sustained high notes" which are great generally, but distracting to me en force. The music was good, powerful and really stirred the emotions...which is a great reason to bring music to a story like this. Sadly, a lot of the musical numbers were a little forgettable to me. I'll have to listen to them again and see if they catch on a bit more, but as we left the show, there wasn't any tune humming our way to the car or anything. There were a few great musical themes for some of the characters, which were a lot of fun. And I loved the powerful emotions envoked during the numbers with the Defarges and other points of the Revolution. So I really felt like the music/songs did a great job with what it was doing, but I would have liked something that stuck with me more afterward. Again, I'll listen to the tunes again to see if something grips me more now.



Overall, this was a fabulous play. I absolutely love this story. It has SOOOOO much going on and so much power and emotion. Seeing it brought to stage was wonderful. Naturally, there were some elements which had to be somewhat glossed over or modified in order to fit into a 3-hour stage presentation, but I still really feel like the heart of the story and its themes was well presented and is a worthy adaptation.

I definitely compliment Jill Santoriello for undertaking an enormous task of bringing this novel to the stage and doing so in such a complete, powerful and stirring way. I also give high kudos to Hale Centre Theatre for a fun, engrossing and truly thrilling production. Thank you for a wonderful night.


4 out of 5 stars

Review - The Three Musketeers (Play)

I was very excited to see The Three Musketeers on the schedule over at Hale Centre Theatre this year. I've always enjoyed adventure stories like this one with the swordplay and the intrigue. I've seen numerous movie versions of the show and really enjoy them. My favorite movie production is the version Disney put out many years ago…they had a stellar cast which I absolutely loved and the writing and directing was a lot of fun.

So anyway, when we got our tickets and arrived at Hale, I was excited for a fun filled night. Generally speaking, that's what I got, although I must sadly say I was a little let down. Part of that was that I wanted the repartee of Tim Curry, the interactions between Keifer Sutherland, Charlie Sheen and Oliver Platt or even the goofy but fun Chris O'Donnell. But even distancing myself from the movie version, there were still a number of points where I was less than satisfied.

Right from the beginning, the swordplay was done pretty well and it set the tone for the rest of the show. The choreography on the sword fight was good, but it felt a little forced and over-the-top (even for a stage production).

I'm sure part of the intent was to give us audible investment as well as visual, but the various grunts/huffs/groans/etc of the actors felt a little distracting (almost cheesy).

Even outside of the swordplay, the general mannerisms and line presentation sometimes had a little too much passion behind it. Don't get me wrong, I applaud the enthusiasm and the energy the actors gave, but sometimes it felt like too much for the scene they were presenting.

As we got into the dialog and general interaction, I was quickly worried that the forced accents (not quite sure of the intended nationality of some of them) would become distracting. Most of the time they didn't, but there were sometimes when the dropping of an "R" or the presentation of a "soft A" felt a little strained and made me wish that they would all just speak "american." If an accent sounds forced, it's distracting and breaks the illusion. It's easier for me to believe no accent than a strained french/english/european accent. If it's not sounding natural, don't do it.

My other qualm with the show is something I'm not sure how they could best avoid…but I had hoped they would. For those who have been to Hale, you know they have a moderate sized stage "in the round." For those familiar with The Three Musketeers, you'll realize that it is a story that takes place in a wide variety of locations often involving a lot of action. Unfortunately these two elements combined for, what I felt to be, a LOT of transitions that sadly broke up the momentum. There were a TON of "fade to black" moments…lots of very short scenes followed by a quick fade to black for prepping another short scene followed closely by another fade to black. Overall, I think they did a good job working with what they had to work with…I'm not sure the best way to overcome this, but there were a few times when the energy and tension just fell apart for me as we faded to black and waited a few seconds for the next part of the action.

I honestly feel a little bad being so negative in this review…I've seen quite a few shows at Hale and have really loved them. I certainly admire the cast and crew for putting on another stellar show. While I have some complaints about the way it played out, I don't want anyone to think I am degrading their talent, skills, or resources. With all of the great shows I've seen at Hale (and I'll continue to go there), I was a little let down and felt like this was one time where they failed to meet my expectations.

I still enjoyed the story and this has rekindled my desire to read the book. I enjoyed the production but if I had it to do again, I would likely save the money to purchase tickets to a different show and instead go watch the movie. The show plays for another week though there were rumors they were sold out. Still, if you happen to go see it (or if you've already seen it), let me know what you think. I'd be curious to hear other people's opinions.


2.5 out of 5 stars

(NOTE: All images taken from Hale Centre's flickr photostream)