Badin vs. Fredericktown
Miamisburg graduation 2012
Valley View vs. Greenville
Writer and editor Home > Blogs > Brain Droppings > Archives > 2006 > April > 08 > Entry
“Movin’ Out” — mostly OK.
We caught “Movin’ Out” at the Schu Friday nite, near the tail end of its run here, and I’m glad the Vic-Schu powers-that-be brought it around, since I was curious to see what the buzz I’ve heard about it over the years is all about.
And yes, the dancing is fabulous and lots of fun. The hard-hoofing young crew does a great job with Twyla Tharp’s inventive and fast-paced choreography, and I thot that the best way to enjoy the show was to simply sit back and zone out watching the movement and skill of the dancers. They were great.
I had a harder time enjoying the show when I paid attention to the music. Billy Joel’s songs, which comprise the entire score, were reasonably well played by the journeyman band with a soundalike singer/pianist, which was cleverly suspended above the heads of the dancers on a high riser over the stage that allowed you to watch musicians and dancers simultaneously.
What bugged me was the way the songs were used. They’re stitched together into a very loosey-goosey storyline that has something, heaven knows what exactly, do to with kids from Brooklyn or someplace like it going off to Vietnam and coming back scarred, etc., etc… except that it’s a pretty dumb story that isn’t particularly well told and certainly doesn’t do justice to any of the emotions we properly associate with that sad period in our history. If anything, it plays them for cheap melodrama that I could have done without.
Along the same lines, Joel’s songs have been pressed into service for situations that they have absolutely nothing to do with. This gets a bit weird at times — the most egregious example being “Big Shot,” which is used for a face-off between a pair of former lovers who’ve gone separate ways since the war… But the song is very specifically about a guy who’s trying to drag somebody he cares about away from the bars-drugs-money-party life that he thinks is ruining her; somehow, it gets misused in the play.
There are other odd recontextualizations that just don’t work … and in fact, distract from the overall impact of the show, which as I said before, should be on the dancing.
The show this reminds me of that’s most recently come thru town would be “Mamma Mia!”, which used the music of ABBA much more effectively — mostly because the writers bothered to actually write. They provided a charming story that the songs made sense with, instead of just stringing together unrelated tunes and pretending it made sense to do so.
What they shoulda done with “Movin’ Out” is just put slick dance moves to the songs, like an old-fashioned variety show — moving our spirits with dance, and not trying to move our emotions with fakey-fakey overdone dramatics that fell flat and detracted from what could have been a much more powerful show.
Oh, well.
Permalink | |
