Review: Cantalevia's DON'T STOP BELIEVIN' Brings Spectacular Nostal-glee-a

On October 4 and 5, 2024, the community choir Cantalevia staged Don’t Stop Believin’: A Tribute to Glee Concert at Gedung Kesenian Jakarta. As the title suggests, the concert presentation is a tribute to the modern classic American TV show that ran from 2009 to 2015 and introduced a lot of Indonesians to show choir and musicals.

The concert is directed by Marsha Ramadani, with a book by Geta Gwyneth Satrio. Rafiz Ari Nugraha serves as the vocal director, Rafli Pradanto as music director (who also led the live music team), and Benedict as choreographer. Cantalevia itself was founded by Fadli Hafizan, Marsha Ramadhani, and Tyas Chatarina, who were all involved in the production. 

Don’t Stop Believin’ invites the audience to reminisce on the musical comedy series, opening with a performance of Pure Imagination by a Glee club. Surprisingly enough, it’s implied to be the same one from the TV series, as we get to see the club advisor – one Mr. Schuester (Rafiz Ari).

He seeks to bring the Glee club to new heights, giving pep talks and brainstorming performance number ideas alongside the club members. However, standing between them and their goals is the delightfully acerbic cheer coach Sue (Clarissa Theophilia), who seems to revel in antagonizing the Glee club at every occasion.

These two characters serve as the anchor for the evening, no other named character appears among the singers. The dialogue scenes don’t really serve to build a narrative, but rather as a means to transition between songs.

Although it’s hard to pick the most iconic numbers from a 5-season musical show, Cantalevia did pretty well in representing the now-revered soundtrack. Most of the songs chosen were group numbers, appropriately enough. However, the standout moment was an outstanding performance of Listen by Shafura Hamid and Jessica Bella that brought the house down. 

Other highlight moments include Lady Gaga’s anthem of self-acceptance Born This Way, in which the cast performs with the iconic white t-shirts emblazoned with their insecurities. The cast brought fierceness, defiance, and sass that did the number justice and surely empowered audience members who had struggled with their identity.

Then there was a heart-wrenching performance of Seasons of Love. In the series, this number was performed during the memorial episode for actor Cory Monteith. In this rendition, instead, the screen in the back displayed faces of Glee cast who had departed (omitting Mark Salling, for understandable reasons). It was a rather touching tribute.

And, of course, the closing number couldn’t be anything but Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’, which is THE iconic Glee song. For this number, the cast invited the audience to sing and dance along – and most everyone did. The Production Team likewise joined in and the theater partied to the rousing anthem. As expected of this creative team, they know how to Raise the Roof.

Glee was a big part of the childhood of current musical theater kids, and it is apparent that the team behind Don’t Stop Believin’ had similarly fond memories of it. The show was crafted carefully and the performances were really evocative of the TV show’s numbers.

It was exciting to watch a show choir performance, somewhat of a rarity in the Jakarta performing arts scene. The vocal performances were solid, but especially shone through the ear-pleasing, invigorating, pop harmonies. The choreography was also surprisingly intricate at times, making good use of the number of performers at stage. The most impressive thing about it was undoubtedly the synchronicity. The choir evidently took the dance calls as seriously as they did vocal calls, and the result spoke for itself.

Artistically, Don’t Stop Believin’ is really evocative of the competition performances in Glee – particularly sectionals and regionals. The main feature is the big LED screen, used to display appropriate visuals for each number. Unfortunately, the blocking cut it off during the aforementioned Seasons of Love number. There were a good number of costume changes and lighting effects as well, creating an appropriately robust spectacle to accompany the performances.

The room for improvement, in my opinion, lies in the interstitial scenes. Although the actors did a more than decent job, the script felt uneven at times. There was a moment where the screen displayed a newspaper article announcing that one of the students has ‘inflicted self-harm’. In Glee, this would have taken around three episodes or so, but there was obviously neither time to build-up nor follow-through in the concert, leaving it feeling rather shallow. The comedy was also rather hit-or-miss, with some line deliveries falling flat.

All in all, Don’t Stop Believin’ accomplished what it set out to do: invite the audience to bask in the joy of Glee. The performances were top-notch and full of passion, a truly worthy tribute to Glee’s legacy. It reminds us that we keep holding on to this perfectly imperfect musical TV series for a reason. As one Ms. Berry said, There is nothing ironic about show choir indeed.
 

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