We Saw The Live Musical Version Of Dirty Dancing
Chrissy and I went to Chicago today to see Dirty Dancing at the Cadillac Palace Theater. I had never seen the actual movie (except for bits and pieces over the years). From what I can tell, the first Act is about a convoluted cover-up plan to enable an abortion, which eventually leads to statutory rape. This is supposed to be 1963? They keep talking about Kennedy and the Peace Corps, but I thought that was a simpler time. The second Act was all about justification for the crime, culminating in a huge dance number.
Chrissy enjoyed it a lot though. She said that it followed the original 1987 movie very closely, while other Broadway shows sometimes take some liberties with the story. I thought it was a little rushed, perhaps to get everything in the movie on stage within the allotted time. The flow seemed clipped, like they were trying very hard to jump from scene to scene exactly as the movie did, despite the fact that theater is a different format. So it was more like a movie being shown on a stage than a theatrical musical.
Production-wise, it wasn’t a bad show, but I was expecting more. After seeing Wicked and The Lion King, I kind of expected to see more elaborate set pieces. Dirty Dancing has a rotating stage with a large digital display at the rear, making it easy to transition into different settings. I guess the problem that I had was that the sets transitioned by changing the channel on the screen behind them as opposed to actually moving new set pieces out onto the stage. Then there were the questionable musical aspects of the show.
The lead actors, who look surprisingly exactly like their movie counterparts, didn’t sing at all. All of their lines were spoken, mostly taken directly from the movie. Minor characters did some singing, but most of the music was recorded and played directly from the soundtrack. At least it ended well: Baby does the lift that she could never get right, Johnny does the triple axle that he would never get right, and Daddy finally accepts Baby as an adult, and everything is right with the world. [oh, um, spoiler!]
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