BWW Reviews: GHOST: THE MUSICAL is a Bad Halloween Trick, No Treat, at Hershey

GHOST was a phenomenal movie - of that, there's no doubt. The 1990 flick was a box-office spectacular for nine months, grossing half a billion dollars on a $21 million investment in Patrick Swayze's smile, Whoopi Goldberg's humor, and a bittersweet paranormal romance. Bruce Joel Rubin should justly be proud of his accomplishment.

He should also have quit while he was ahead.

He gave up lucrative offers for years in order to work on GHOST: THE MUSICAL, which got under way in 2005 and didn't make it out of development until it finally opened in England in 2011. In 2013, it's still not ready for prime time, even after its short run on Broadway, but it's on a national post-Broadway tour, and that tour is currently at Hershey Theatre, where it fits as well as a Mallo-Cup in the middle of a Reese's display. Not loved on Broadway, Rubin says that he believes Broadway didn't understand him, but that American audiences outside Broadway will get it.

Translation? Maybe the rubes won't be that fussy and they'll just be delighted to see a singing, dancing version of one of their favorite movies with a spiffy light show attached. You know what, Rubin? Quit insulting the non-New Yorkers and take this thing back into development for another six years. Yes, it really is as unfinished and as harsh as a raw cocoa bean that hasn't been turned into a Special Dark bar yet, Hershey. Bruce Joel Rubin's book and lyrics, and Dave Stewart's (yes, the Eurythmics' Dave Stewart) and Glen Ballard's music and lyrics, may be faithful to the movie, which Rubin wanted, but they're not exactly good. The non-Equity tour has the feel of a university musical theatre program performance - and coming from director Matthew Warchus, it should be better than that.

It's not really the fault of the cast - they're mostly young and relatively inexperienced, mostly almost straight out of their colleges' theatre programs and cruise ship stages, but they're energetic and eager to please. What most of them haven't developed yet is the all-important communication to the audience - there's plenty of communication on stage, but it doesn't grab the spectator yet. The great exception to that is Carla R. Stewart, whose Oda Mae, the psychic, is a wonder. She's powerful, almost viscerally communicating with the audience as well as her co-stars, and possessed of a great sense of comic timing. Steven Grant Douglas, who leads as Sam Wheat, has the acting chops, but isn't quite reaching the audience yet - or perhaps he's simply overwhelmed and overshadowed by the heavy blast of videos around him and the butchered up-tempo revamp of "Unchained Melody" he's stuck with. Katie Postotnik, the show's Molly, looks and sounds like a Rachel Bay Jones in the making, but again, the show's visual weight, which will be addressed next, overshadows everything else.

Visually, the show is a nightmare - not a musical, but an extended music video. From the moment the audience enters, they are hit with a stage-sized projection of two lovers (neither Douglas and Postotnik or Swayze and Demi Moore, by their looks) superimposed upon a Manhattan skyline. (But wait - the apartment's in Brooklyn... why?) As the music cues, the lovers dissolve, and the audience is taken on a roller-coaster ride through skyscrapers that has the exact video simulation of modern movie theatre "welcome to the show" experiences that have candy bars and "turn off your cell phone" messages flashing at the viewers as they feel the thrill ride around them. This reviewer was looking for the dancing hot dogs and popcorn buckets to show up at intermission.

From then on, the show is a visual cacophony of projections - full screen, part-screen, split-screen, that sometimes substitutes for set, sometimes serves as background, and sometimes dominates and obliterates both set and actors. The ever-swirling collage of photos and videos is accompanied by synchronized lighting around the proscenium and behind the screens that flash in varying colors and rhythms according to song, sometimes - too often - directly into audience members' eyes. There's a strobe-effect warning outside; alas, it's not for one sequence but for the entire show. The general effect is of having stumbled into a musical that thinks it's an outdoor rock festival. As for that rock festival - other than the badly interpreted "Unchained Melody" and Oda Mae's two numbers, most of it sounds exactly alike from number to number, varying only in singer and in number of background singers and dancers. There's no particular number to embrace except for Oda Mae's spectacular eleven o'clock piece, "I'm Outta Here." The melodramatic rock musical genre has been well-served by such works as RENT, SPRING AWAKENING and NEXT TO NORMAL both dramatically and musically speaking; this is no addition to their ranks.

What's good here? Oda Mae's set pieces, and her delightfully choreographed phony-psychic ensemble routines. The special effects are astonishing - Sam's walking-through-doors effect is brilliant, as is the scene with him and the subway ghost as Sam learns how to employ his ghostly form to create physical effects. The subway fight scene is extraordinary. Technically, the show is incredible, discounting the dissolve-into-video-animations effect that overwhelms some of the dance numbers (worse yet are the videos that have animated figures dancing along with the cast like bad music videos, or a nightmarish re-living of the classic "Jerry the mouse-and-Gene Kelly" dance sequence). The subway ghost's hip-hop explanation of how to move objects and be felt by others is one of the best pieces of near-musical writing, and entertaining. However, forcing all gospel numbers on Oda Mae and hip-hop on the black subway ghost smacks of modern minstrel show, even though these are the only things that stand out from the blandness the rest of the sound. Black people sing gospel, hip-hop, soul; white people sing white-bread rock.

But simulated sex on stage dissolving into huge black-and-white videos of other people engaging in the same - and then dissolving further into a musical number on Wall Street greed without transition? A moment when Sam's killer, finding a picture of Molly in Sam's wallet, begins to masturbate to the picture? Prudishness isn't required to label these unnecessary and even offensive in the latter case. Where Rubin had no sense, Warchus should have stepped in, but he didn't. Sure, Rubin was the one that wanted the hinterlands to appreciate his genius here, but the director should have been able to apply some brakes to this runaway train wreckage.

A number of technical changes were made for the tour so that effects could travel more easily. It's a shame that technical matters were the only things revisited - the show begs for a musical overhaul and for not using dazzling and even overpowering effects in an effort to cover the weaknesses of the show's basic structure, writing, and musical composition.

It's true that movie versions of musical classics frequently butcher the show - see the film versions of KISS ME, KATE and LES MISERABLES for immediate proof of that. But musical versions of classic movies usually are even worse. However, GHOST: THE MUSICAL succeeds at that effort even more stupendously than most. The only reason to go back to your seat after intermission is to see how much worse the second half can be than the first - or else to hang on knowing that Oda Mae has the eleven o'clock number so it's going to be good. Mostly, though, you'll go back because like any train wreck, no matter how bad it is, you can't quite stop looking at the carnage. In that respect, it's the perfect show to be here over Halloween. It's CARRIE all over again, though perhaps that's an insult to CARRIE.

At Hershey Theatre through November 3, but go to a local production of ROCKY HORROR SHOW instead, or to Dutch Apple for their absolutely delightful HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING, if you crave Live Theatre entertainment. Otherwise, even a lame office Halloween party or a marathon "Friday the 13th" or "Saw" viewing will be cheaper and more entertaining. If in spite of all else you can't live without seeing the movie live on stage, call 717-534-3405 or visit hersheytheatre.com for tickets.

Photo credit: Joan Marcus

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