Reviews

High School MusicalGaiety Theatre Dublin:  Expectations for the made-for-TV Disney movie High School Musical were originally as modest as its title. Given a generic tag that simply distinguished it from other Mouse House operations such as Classic Fairy-tale Animation or Computer- Generated Animal Adventure, the film somehow became a phenomenon, spawning several albums, a chain of sequels, about a squillion lunch boxes and three live shows – so far.

What accounts for the untrammelled success of this toothsome juggernaut? The plot is so straightforward it wouldn’t tax a comatose cheerleader. Basketball star Troy and brainiac Gabriella “meet cute” on vacation, bonding over karaoke, before being reunited when Gabriella moves to Troy’s school. This pair of star-cross’d lovers find their romance stifled by petty, inflexible social codes – a nod, of course, to the pantheon of high-culture classics such as Grease and West Side Story.

In a delicately balanced eco-system of jocks, brainiacs and thespians, this transgressive urge to sing and dance could spell the ruin of Gabriella or the fall of Troy. So, a natural vehicle for a stage musical adaptation then? Not necessarily.

There was a genuine charm in the original movie, which clung to a blemishless innocence when every other class act had become catty or mean. No jock here ever bullies, no nerd wants for dress sense or social skills and even the villains are only passingly obnoxious. Troy (Ashley Day) and Gabriella (Claire-Marie Hall) even pine for kindergarten, like a lost Eden.

On stage, Disney’s touring version is caught between slavish emulation of the film and ham-fisted elaboration. The opening number, Start of Something New, is now a direct cog from Grease’s Summer Nights, while the show’s musical within this musical has become a “neo-feminist adaptation of Shakespeare supplying a happy ending, relocated to Dublin”.

That knowingness doesn’t compensate for the forgettably inoffensive power ballads, or impress an audience of distractible tweens who have simply come to relive the DVD. Jeff Calhoun’s production supplies megawatts of cheery energy, where an indefatigable ensemble – each one a marvel of orthodonture – is regularly urged to reach for the sky or leap into the splits. Conducted with the precision of Chinese athletes with winsome or wincing fixed smiles, the stage show actually seems less personable than the screen version, less interactive than the videogame, and at times even chillier than the ice-skating version.

The incessant command of High School Musical is to follow your dreams and resist conformity, but the innumerable clones and product lines for that simple idea are an education in themselves.

Until April 25th