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Hot Feet
Last night Michael and I went to go see "Hot Feet," a new musical based on the songs of funk group Earth, Wind, and Fire. It was fun. It was different. It definitely wasn't extraordinary theatre, but it was thoroughly entertaining fluff. The writers seemed to realize that the music they were working with was made to be danced to rather than sung, and having seen that they made what I consider a smart choice in not trying to write an original story to go along with the existing music. Most popular music doesn't translate well into musical theatre form because the songs weren't originally written to tell a single story. "Hot Feet" gets around this problem by taking an old and well worn story, that of the Red Shoes, and simply setting it to a funk backdrop.
Another interesting, and I think overall good, choice they made was not asking the actors to sing. Like I said, these songs were meant to be danced to and so we had a cast full of very talented dancers. Rather than making the characters sing songs to express themselves, they had them dance their emotions. There was a group of three singers off stage, who we didn't get a glimpse of till the curatain call, who sang all the songs. Only two or three songs were sung by actors on stage. What I liked about this arrangement was that it didn't try to make the music something it wasn't. It didn't try to make it deep or emotional, didn't try to weave them into a flawless narrative tapestry. They let the dance take on that task. Not to mention the fact that the set up required none of the dancers to sing or any of the singers to dance which, in a time where there are few "triple threats" left in the world of musical theatre, was very welcome. They let the performers do what they do best, didn't make them try to carry numbers they didn't have the correct talent or training to pull off.
Oh, and even if the choreography was a little unimaginative at times, I have to admit it was great just to see a group of people dancing on a Broadway stage. You don't get much of that anymore.
I love, love, love, love, love dancers. I wish I could be one of them. I wish I had that much grace and control of my body. I've tried to make myself a dancer, several times in fact, but I seriously have no aptitude for it. I could never get my body to do the things my dance teachers wanted it to do.
So, all in all, fun night at the theatre. I now return you to whatever you've got regularly scheduled.
Another interesting, and I think overall good, choice they made was not asking the actors to sing. Like I said, these songs were meant to be danced to and so we had a cast full of very talented dancers. Rather than making the characters sing songs to express themselves, they had them dance their emotions. There was a group of three singers off stage, who we didn't get a glimpse of till the curatain call, who sang all the songs. Only two or three songs were sung by actors on stage. What I liked about this arrangement was that it didn't try to make the music something it wasn't. It didn't try to make it deep or emotional, didn't try to weave them into a flawless narrative tapestry. They let the dance take on that task. Not to mention the fact that the set up required none of the dancers to sing or any of the singers to dance which, in a time where there are few "triple threats" left in the world of musical theatre, was very welcome. They let the performers do what they do best, didn't make them try to carry numbers they didn't have the correct talent or training to pull off.
Oh, and even if the choreography was a little unimaginative at times, I have to admit it was great just to see a group of people dancing on a Broadway stage. You don't get much of that anymore.
I love, love, love, love, love dancers. I wish I could be one of them. I wish I had that much grace and control of my body. I've tried to make myself a dancer, several times in fact, but I seriously have no aptitude for it. I could never get my body to do the things my dance teachers wanted it to do.
So, all in all, fun night at the theatre. I now return you to whatever you've got regularly scheduled.