I've seen a few CLO productions of Dreamgirls and liked them. I've never loved them but they worked. When I heard that this production of Dreamgirls was touring I thought I HAD to go see a "REAL" production of it.
I didn't LOVE it, but most of it worked.
Billed as "Slick, sleek and glitzy", I guess they WERE right. (Even though the rumblings I heard during intermission is that the L.E.D. PANELS instead of sets was kinda boring...and I think that's supposed to be the SLICK part...and, well, I agree. They WERE boring.) That was one of the things I thought was amatuerish about this production besides that fact that all of the female characters all looked like little girls running around on stage instead of show-stopping Broadway stars commanding it. (Wow, that sounded bitchy.)
There's only SO much you can do when your set for the entire show is really just bigger versions of the fences from the helicopter scene in Miss Saigon (AND THOSE PEOPLE COULDN'T EVEN GET TO THE OTHER SIDE!!!), so a lot of time people are just kind of walking around downstage and singing out to audience instead of each other. It was weird and VERY high school productiony. What else was weird was that they kept in scene change music, when there was no set to change and then they cut out all the "Showbiz...Its. Just. Showbiz" stuff. Like, umm, WHY? The people could have been singing that instead of standing downstage waiting for the scenery not to change.
Whatever. I think I got over it, once the sets REALLY serviced the production (like during the 'TV Specials' segment. TOTALLY freakin' brilliant) instead of the production servicing the multi-million dollar panels.
Syesha Mercado as Deena Jones was good. Great, even. It's really a thankless role and I've never noticed that before. (But, I'm sure Beyoncè did, OKAY!?!?!) I thought she was really one of the only performers whose character actually grew and changed and expressed some REAL emotion. I never watched her on American Idol so I don't know WHAT she's like, performing wise, vocally or anything else, but I thought she did great and her character gets overshadowed a lot more than you think it would...
Moya Angela as Effie White, isn't bad, she just isn't great. She sounds JUST LIKE Lillias White when she sings but has nowhere NEAR the range...OR charisma. Her acting is High School Junior at best and once she hits the second act, she gets kind of gay boy doing black-girlish instead of a more centered powerful woman, EXCEPT for her second act number "I Am Changing". It KILLED twice as hard as "And Im Telling You". KILLED! IT WAS AMAZING!!! Why? Personally, I think it was because she could probably relate or there's NO pressure on that song, because for her And I'm Telling You I felt like she was focused on hoping people thought she could sing better than Jennifer Hudson while she was busy trying to do ALL the blocking Jennifer Holliday actually had modivation for.
Chaz Lamar Shepherd as Curtis wasn't AT ALL enjoyable. Every time he was onstage I kept thinking about who I would send a letter to so that they would give him the note of QUIT TRYING. He can NOT sing as well as the others in the cast, but MAN does he try. I wanted to scream: QUIT TAKING YOUR TIME AND STOP THOSE FUCKING VOCAL TWIRLS AND FOR CHRIST SAKE THIS SONG IS SYNCOPATED FOR A REASON: SING IT THE WAY IT WAS WRITTEN, YOU'RE FUCKING EVERYONE ONE ELSE UP! Ugh, totally annoying AND distracting even though he has "EVIL CONMAN CHARACTER" down to an art form.
Chester Gregory as James "Thunder" Early is the BEST thing in this show. THE BEST. HE STEALS THE SHOW. His curtain call applause at our performance out shown Effie's by a LONG shot. He's funny, charming, a BRILLIANT singer, AMAZING timing, dedicated to everywhere his character is going and has gone. You couldn't wait for him to come back on stage because EVERY THING he did was brilliant. He milked everything for what it's worth while NOT over doing it...how he does that, I have no idea, but he's a genius in this role and production.
The pacing of this show is great (except when Curtis is singing), most of the costumes looked like they were borrowed from a bevy of retired drag queens (Only a couple looked like BROADWAY PRODUCTION costumes, and those were amazing.) The Orchestra is split up with the piano, drums and bass onstage and the rest down in the pit and when the "stage" band is playing it totally overpowers the singers and you can't understand a word they are singing OR saying.
WITH THAT SAID: I didn't walk out. I wasn't bored, I didn't hate it. I thought it was enjoyable and people who don't know anything about anything LOVED it. (all the gays I saw there thought it was 'fun'. Ugh. Kiss of death. Fun is the new 'Neat'.)
Would I go see it again? If it was free and we had house seats, YES. I would go to see if what I saw was their best performance or if they were just saving up for their 4 show weekend ahead of them...
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