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"I saw 'Dirty Dancing' tonight at the early show
(Friday 6 October) and although it has played some 500 performances already in
Australia, or so I understand, it is currently very much 'work in progress'!
I have never seen the film, so I came to it on its own merits as a stage show,
and it took me a while to realise that it is a rather serious story about
relationships, both within a family and also among a group of young people, set
in 1963 USA, with the music of the time as its 'soundtrack'. As such it was
quite thought provoking, and by the time we got to the end I decided that it was
actually rather good.
But at present there are some problems, the main one being that the
predominantly young audience at present finds it hard to take the story
seriously. Act I ends with what I thought was a powerful, dramatic scene where
the girl, Baby, goes to bed for the first time with the professional dancer
Johnny. The actor playing Johnny is very well-built, with a classic 'six-can'
torso, and he was bare down to the waist in this scene, which drew wolf whistles
and laughter from the audience, thus destroying the dramatic impact that the
scene should have had.
Also, I thought the musical numbers were sometimes not well integrated into the
dramatic structure, or perhaps it was the other way around. The production
acknowledges that it tries to emulate cinematic techniques, but hey, this is
live theatre, not the cinema, and it would be better to use theatrical
techniques rather than cinematic ones to present the story and the musical
numbers.
Josef Brown, who has apparently played Johnny Castle some 500 times in the
Australian production, is just brilliant. He looks like a million dollars,
dances superbly, and his acting is good. In other words, he is just perfect. I
was less happy with Baby. Not having seen the film, I am perhaps at a
disadvantage, but she started out being rather gauche and awkward, and, for my
money, that's fairly much how she ended up! OK, so she did the overhead lift in
the final scene, but that's no big deal...classical ballet dancers do it in
their sleep! I guess she's not meant to be an 'ugly duckling', like the girl in
'Strictly Ballroom', but at least the ugly duckling scenario makes the heart
lift up when the girl suddenly takes off her glasses, lets down her hair and
starts to dance like an angel! This actress was just rather plain at the start
and stayed that way all through the show! Sorry, but for my money the role needs
a bit more development!
Anyway, I was struck tonight by the fact that although the audience was keen to
join in with lots of whooping and hollering, it really wasn't until the very
last scene when Johnny says 'Nobody leaves 'Baby' in the corner' or something
like that, and then he starts to dance with her and does the famous overhead
lift that the audience was really able to join in with their shouting and
clapping.
I thought the staging was effective enough, especially the scenes where the two
leads practised their lifts in a field of grass and also in the water! The
projections worked well, and the scenic effects allowed the scenes to flow
seamlessly from one to another, although the script and direction let things
down at times. Hopefully all this will be sorted out by the time press night
arrives, but it does make me wonder how come the show was so successful in
Australia!
Apart from the two leads, the rest of the cast were good, except that the
wonderful Issy van Randwick is totally wasted...I guess she is happy to be in
work, but for a performer as talented as she is, she has absolutely nothing to
do."
____________________________ Dirty Dancing at its very best! I have been looking forward to seeing this
production of Dirty Dancing since booking 6 months ago, so when I finally took
my seat on the early evening performance of Friday 13th October 2006 I was full
of expectation.
We were seated in the stalls seats C 7 and 8 in the stalls. Although I could see
the stage well I would say that it was a little to close to the action and would
have preferred to be further back, certainly not any closer as I had to move my
head from side to side to see all the action. However, the theatre is quite
small so it did feel quite intimate and allowed the audience to feel like part
of the action.
As I was a teenager when the original film came out I suppose you could say that
I was of optimum age to see the show. I knew the film script by heart and so I
did not know if I would be disappointed by the show. As it happened, I was far
from disappointed.
The script is amazingly close to the film, though better because the added
scenes go further. The music is a mix of live performances brilliantly sung, and
original recordings which give a very powerful almost concert like feel,
allowing the dancers to perform without getting out of breath when they have to
sing. The acting was superb. I was a little worried that as the actors were
largely unknown is this country, it would not be as good, but actually Josef
Brown’s similarity in stature, voice and mannerisms are like a carbon copy of
Patrick Swayze. Georgina Rich’s performance as “Baby” is played to perfection as
do the rest of the cast.
I have tried hard to find fault with this stage show and I really can’t. The
sets are so clever, I could not see how they were going to make a lake on stage,
but they did. The choreography was incredible, every member of the ensemble had
an important part to play. Reading other reviews, I can understand the criticism
that the drama can get lost. But this musical is not a stuffy thought provoking
drama. It is a fun, coming of age story that is a fantasy of yesteryear. I can
not praise this production enough for the energy shown on stage. I can not wait
to go again, and again. Go to be entertained, you will laugh you may cry, but
you will NOT be disappointed.
Claire Crome
Maidstone, Kent.
_______________________ Being a fan of the movie "Dirty Dancing" and
reading in the paper how it was breaking records in advance sales, I decided to
“go for it” and get a ticket to have “the time of my life”. Firstly, I had to
queue for 2 hours to get a ticket for the previews at the top price of £50 which
were located in row Q of the stalls.
My disappointment started when I heard the song of "Be My Baby," but in fact
it was a song that I had never heard of. As the show went on, I thought that it
would get better, but the actor playing the leading role (Josef Brown) was
nothing but a “pretty face,” well, I should more accurately say a pretty body. I
soon became under the impression that with the amount of hours he spent in the
gym, he had no time left to do either acting classes or phonetic ones to get a
decent American accent. I felt so sorry for Georgina Rich, who plays ‘Baby’ and
was actually very good, but it seemed that she was trying to recreate a romantic
scene with a brick rather than a charming, desirable character.
The dancing was OK but definitely not enough to sustain the piece. The set
designer should be ashamed of himself because the set looked like they had tried
to build a castle in a box of matches. It is a highly technical show managed by
an amateur team. The singing was good, but you had to spend minutes scanning the
stage to figure out who the hell was interpreting the song. The effort to try to
do everything the same as the movie is wasted, as you do not have enough time to
assimilate what it feels like 150 different scenes in one act. It would work
better if they just put the DVD on the back screen of the stage.
All in all I think that Eleanor Bergstein should be a little bit more
considerate to her fans by not allowing this boring pantomime to happen, or
maybe she just does not care at all and all she ever wanted was to get the
advance money from it and make a big scam…..
In conclusion I would say that if you are a theatregoer who likes good acting
and being entertained don’t bother going to this, but if you have never been to
the theatre before and you don’t mind paying £59.50 plus booking fee to see a
nice torso jumping around on stage this is the show for you.
____________________________ Having never seen the film (and frankly never
having had any desire to) I didn’t hold out much hope for this show. It was
however, a Birthday present for my wife who was a devotee of the film.
I have to agree with a previous reviewer and disagree with the Monkey a little
(unusually) and say the first 30 minutes or so are somewhat confusing and a
little disjointed. I understand from my wife that the production closely follows
the film and perhaps this is where it falls down, as it doesn’t translate to
stage particularly well.
One scene (round the camp-fire) is an addition to the film and was as I
understand it due to be in the film but the chosen song couldn’t be included for
copyright reasons. Apparently it is supposed to carry a political message
(compounded by screen projections of Martin Luther King) however it clearly
confused much of the audience given the very audible murmurs throughout.
The biggest disappointment for me was the lack of singing with the vast majority
of the show played out to backing tracks of the original songs. This was a shame
given the vocally stunning rendition of "In the Still of the Night" towards the
end of the show. This was sung by one of the supporting cast, stood in the
background and why a similar approach couldn’t be used for much of the rest of
the show I don’t know.
In summary it seems to me that a potentially decent show is held back by
attempting to follow the film too closely. All of this said my wife absolutely
loved it and the same could be said of almost all of the 80% + female audience.
Definitely one for the ladies!!!
Martin Symes
Kent
_____________________________ I went to see "Dirty Dancing" with my best mate,
who got the tickets for Xmas
and kindly invited me to go with her, for which I can't thank her enough as I did
have the 'time of my life.' The show is fantastic. Johnny (Josef Brown) was
the perfect choice as Johnny, like Patrick Swayze, was a brilliant dancer and
had the body to die for.
We loved singing along to the classic songs and
repeating the classic liners "nobody leaves baby in the corner" which you
could here the whole of the theatre saying. The dancing by the whole cast
was excellent, would recommend all "Dirty Dancing" fans to go and see this, I'm
looking to book tickets to see it again. Nicky,
London
_____________________________ It's simple. If you love the film you'll love
the show. It is almost
scene-for-scene and word-for-word the same, but with the bonus of
extra bits to pad it out, which work quite well.
Not necessarily the greatest show on earth, a little cheesy perhaps,
but great fun for a girls' night out when you don't want to worry about
thinking and just want to have fun. Everyone in the audience was
singing along, and by the end were cheering every iconic line - the
cheers to 'nobody puts baby in the corner...'nearly took the roof off!
I have to say the seats were good but then we were 4 rows from the
front and just off centre; being short, it is not often I have problems
with leg room - usually it is trying to see past the person in front!
but at that distance it was not an issue!
The water sold was of reasonable price for London theatres but it did
get hot in the theatre and we went in February 2007.
I believe you should go to the theatre to see the show and if a famous
person appears that night, it is a welcome bonus.
In this there were no big names and the understudy took the male lead,
quite frankly you would not have known, the performances were great.
During the show we saw, the interval was extended due to one of the
actors being taken ill and the cast having to re-adjust to cover the
parts. The understudy stepped in beautifully and we amused ourselves
trying to work out who had had to replace who, to allow the understudy
to step up from the part he had previously been playing! sadly (and
I'll blame the illness) the understudy who stepped in was better than
the original actor.
The set was interesting and generally worked well. the water scenes
were an effect I hadn't seen before and was amusing but effective.
Sadly with an audience of excitable females, the effect of the fallen
tree being lowered into place (and raised back up again) brought about
very juvenile, and extremely rude comments and sniggers (very phallic)
and yes i sniggered along with the best of them!! If I had one criticism of anything, it would be the microphones.
First I thought the lead male had hair grips in as his hair kept doing
weird flicks and stood out at odd angles, till I realised the
microphone was around his head and should have been covered by his
hair (fine until a character runs their fingers through his hair and
dislodges it!) then, during the semi nude scenes, the discreet flesh
coloured tape used to cover the microphone wire travelling up their
backs needed more adhesive. With all the dancing, they had come
unstuck and the characters looked like they had carry-handles, and
someone could have picked them up and carried them off at any time!
Not sure they can do much about it but it was distracting. Sometimes
sitting too close to the stage highlights problems unnoticed by those
further back.
Generally a good fun show, that has everyone humming , toe-tapping and
reminiscing and walking out with a smile. Now that can't be bad.
Jos
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