Carrie: The Musical

On Saturday night I went to see Carrie: The Musical.
I was pretty excited because a) I love Stephen King and b) I love musicals. What could be better? Would there be a duet with Carrie and her mother about Dirty Pillows? I was going to find out!

For ease of reading my review, I have broken it into three sections.
The Location
The Play
The Performance

The Location - Auckland Music Theatre aka a big shed next to MOTAT

Parking

The parking lot was very dark and scary. We had to park in a muddy field and I was scared I would fall over and sprain my ankle. Let's just say there is precedent for this fear. If this was America, it would be a lawsuit waiting to happen. But this is New Zealand, so no one cared.

The Lobby

There was no lobby, just an entrance way. It was cold and there was nowhere to sit. Every time someone opened the door, cigarette smoke wafted in. I was not happy. The bar was a lady with some cans of soft drink and some packets of chips that I don't think are allowed to be sold as single items. There was no diet coke.

The theatre

The seating was poorly laid out with no consideration for the stage set up. I got a really sore neck.

The Play

The story

Now, this is probably a bit of a cheat, because I actually know a lot about Stephen King. I felt the interpretation of the source material was a bit weak. It was more of a romantic comedy than a horror. Everyone was too nice. It was hard to see how Carrie was driven to mass murder. Even her mother keep singing about how much she loved her precious daughter, instead of, you know, torturing her.

A lot of it was very cringy. Tommy Ross was so insipid I felt embarrassed for the actor playing him. Even Chris and Billy were about as villainous as Team Rocket. Sue Snell was already a very dull character, but this play took that blandness and blanded it to a whole new degree of bland.

Instead of being set in the 70's this was set in today's era. With cell phones and cyber bullying adding a different dimension. This is fine, I have no problem with updating it. But a lot of the content sat a bit funny. Playing a boy on boy crush as a laugh and making a joke about student/teacher flirting doesn't really sit well in today's climate. Before you update your tech, update your attitudes.

The music

The music really makes or breaks a musical. We can forgive how every single person in Rent is just terrible, because the music is great. Unfortunately the music in Carrie was not great. It made me think of Disney musicals. But not the modern Lin-Manuel Miranda written musicals, the old school Snow White style that I just want to fast forward.

The Performance

The acting

I have to give props to the actors in this musical. I thought they did their damndest with the material they had. The lead who played Carrie was particularly brilliant. I really felt she conveyed what it is like to be the high school loser. 

The singing

For the most part, the singing was really good. Carrie and her mother were spectacular and could really belt out those notes. 

The dancing

The dancing was awful. At one point they did a chair dance that reminded me of the chair dance scene from Drop Dead Gorgeous, only this wasn't played for laughs. I'm sorry but there's only one person who can pull off a chair dance and that's Ms Liza Minelli.

Final rating: 2 and a half buckets of pigs blood