Reviews

Musicals from Broadway’s “Golden Age” were written for a different era and a different set of cultural and societal differences. Mostly their portrayal and treatment of characters, by today’s standards, can seem outmoded and outdated. South Pacific is no exception. Revolutionary at the time for it’s depiction of racism, to a contemporary audience it seems heavy-handed, yet it’s the racism spine (and exceptional score) that gives South Pacific its strength and longevity on stage.

Growing up as I did in a time before Internet and before Netflix and Youtube, the Sunday Matinee movie was often the entertainment highlight of my week. I can’t honestly remember whether the 1942 Universal Studios’ Holiday Inn, starring Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire and Marjorie Reynolds, was one that I saw; I hope it was, but I can say that the adaptation staged by Therry Dramatic Society transported me, very happily, right back to that time.

Bring It On The Musical is a high energy, loud, athletic tour de force. Based on the hit film, it is the story of an ambitious Cheerleader who achieves her life-long ambition to be leader of the squad only to find her home has been rezoned and she has to change schools. She then convinces the dance team at her new school to take up Cheerleading and compete against her old school.

However, her aim for revenge, which appears to be the obvious way the story is heading, does not eventuate, and she learns something much more important.

Let’s face it. The whole idea was to perform the music of Queen other than in concert form and Ben Elton has concocted a convoluted story for that purpose. It works wonderfully well. The play is set in the future where individuality no longer exists – everyone wears the same style of clothes, and there’s no music or original thinking. A group of Bohemians is searching for the freedoms of the past. They meet in an old Hard Rock Cafe, try to understand what has gone before and name themselves after long lost stars such as Buddy (Holly) and Brit (Spears).