Footloose review

Footloose Review - Broadway musical

This show gave several tours in the UK, although many musicals were limited to only 1 or 2. There were as many as 3, and then a 10-year-old anniversary, the jubilee US tour was given (the composition of actors was following: J. Blim, E. Keiser, K. Proctor, L. Luppino, S. C. Barnes, G. Wall, M .–E. Hilton, J. Hollander, M. K. Guy, M. Kennan). The show plays with periodic renewals. For example, in 2015, Pennsylvania has taken one of the last productions in chronological order. Histrionics excelled with 4 Tony nominations in the categories: Best Book, Best Original Score, Best Performance, Best Choreography (although it never won any).

This musical is based on a very popular movie of year 1984, starring Kevin Bacon (Tremors, Invisible Man among others), that has collected USD 80 million, despite the very mixed reviews. T. Snow was the author of the music, D. Pitchford did the lyrics, W. Bobbie was the author of the libretto in collaboration with D. Pitchford.

Dramatic history tells of a teenager who was forced with his mother to move to a small town from the big city, because they had no money to pay for an apartment there. So they stayed at relatives’. The local priest in this city lost his baby in a car accident when he was returning from the dance and he made the wrong conclusions out of this situation. So he banned dancing (question mark – is any person really possess such an authority to do that? Besides, although these circumstances did not become the culprit of his death, as much as both traffic and weather conditions, along with the human factor of the driver. So, it would be much more logical to ban cars, roads or drivers. Or death itself). New arrivals in front of this prohibition, is very fond of dancing, and much distressed when on arrival find out about this strange forbiddance. After several stages of the fight, he was armed with a Bible, returning the priest’s weapon against him own: the attributes of faith contrary to the Nature of the faith itself. In the end everything is permitted amicably – the priest sees that dancing – not always evil and allows it again, to the delight of the huge cohort of local youth.

The film, which was the basis for the musical, received mixed reviews – it was just over 50% on Rotten Tomatoes, with the general conclusion about the musical: there was little dance, but everything else would look nice, if not incomprehensible fight of thugs with local authorities as a way to stand out and to make themselves unique. Although there is no bright line of love, it felt that a musical was liked by youth because of its rebellious spirit. Beautiful presentation of this position – dancing as a protest – captivated movie audience and allowed it to collect 80 million. Critics said that all the major storylines both in the film and in the musical, were displayed blurry – the conflict in the city, displaying colorless characters of teenagers and faded musical numbers. Even worse were such feedbacks as: despite being a hit, this was an empty garbage feed for teen market. The entire film only was holding on the charm of Bacon (in particular, all without exception, liked his multi-level dance at the mill), but he was not among members of this musical, and it is a pitiful.
Last Update:April, 06th 2016