Review: A CHORUS LINE, Sadler's Wells

God, I hope they all get it. That’s what you’ll find yourself thinking when A Chorus Line kicks off. Seventeen dancers are auditioning for a handful of roles in the ensemble of a new venture on Broadway. On a bare stage, Zach, the ruthless director-slash-choreographer-slash-faded-performer, runs a tight ship. As they learn the routine and edge closer to booking the spot, they share their dreams and inspiration, sharing what made them become dancers.

Nikolai Foster’s hugely successful revamp of Michael Bennett’s Pulitzer-winning 1975 musical has finally travelled all the way to London. With music by Marvin Hamlisch, lyrics by Edward Kleban, and a book by James Kirkwood Jr. and Nicholas Dante, it’s one of those productions that forgoes its looks almost entirely in order to deliver raw emotion. There are no jazzy set pieces, no flashy main roles. It’s a singularly sensational piece of choral theatre, a production of astounding beauty from top to bottom.

The show is in itself show-stopping. The cast of accomplished triple-threats swaps tense competition for a jubilant celebration of form. In a post-pandemic industry that’s suffered cuts to the arts across all areas, it’s disheartening to see a jobbing performer's quality of life hasn’t exactly progressed much. But, gosh, they make it look so beautiful.

A Chorus Line lifts the lid on what working in the business really is like for 95% of artists: “It wasn’t paradise, but it was home.” The precarity of the job is exposed via a healthy dose of trauma-dumping at the request of Adam Cooper’s Zach. Their personal and professional lives intersect, disclosing the burning passion that lives in all of them. Dance was a welcome escape in their youth, now it’s the struggle they love.

Adam Cooper covers the stage with bold charisma. Rough around the edges and untouchable from the outside, he drops his act multiple times to reveal a delicate soul and blazing belief in the value of art. His sacrificial lambs, the auditioners, are an astonishing group. Bona fide star Carly Mercedes Dyer is Cassie, the once popular soloist who hasn’t worked in two years and Zach’s former lover. Dyer appropriately steals the scene with a breathtaking final note in “The Music and the Mirror”, her person reflected in fractals in the series of mirrors at the back. Foster works with gorgeous, stripped down visuals that put his actors at the front throughout. Imogen Rose Hart makes Maggie (a shy, sweet woman who grew up in a broken home) a standout voice with her powerful, controlled, frankly enviable belt, unmatched even in this consistent company.

It’s difficult to decide who to mention as other highlights in this gorgeous ensemble, as everyone is deserving of a notice. Foster’s take and its bounty of talent are a true gift. Toby Seddon lifts the mood with Bobby’s self-described strangeness while Amy Thornton comes off strong as the confident older Sheila; Jocasta Almgill joins the line-up of powerhouses as Diana Morales and Redmand Rance is beguiling as Mike, who delivers the first captivating dance solo with “I Can Do That”.

The dancers all get a chance to confide their body image issues and work disappointments, the nature of their relationships with their parents, and the affinity they find with other artists. This might seem a strange musical about an audition, but it digs deep into the human side of the industry and introduces the people behind the shiny costumes of the final song. 

The direction hides the band away with the help of Grace Smart’s set design: the musicians sit in what looks like a large equipment case on wheels that the crew will turn on its axis for a big reveal. Mirrors and a moving riser are the only pieces that join a water cooler, Zach’s desk, and a lonely ghost light in the proscenium. There’s nowhere to hide in the starkness of the stage. Howard Hudson lights the project with raw beauty, while Costume Designer Edd Lindley keeps his tricks up his sleeve before exploding the space in an abundance of fabulous gold during the dazzling finale.

We watch with mouths agape as row after row of gilded tuxedos deliver the number they’ve been learning all along. The subdued visuals, enlived only by exquisite lighting, that we’ve experienced so far give way to a ravishing, sumptuous, OTT moment. It crowns a production that has everything you want from musical theatre. Sombre ballads, comic intervals, touching moments that tear down the concept of toxic masculinity, women supporting women... There’s a reason A Chorus Line won nine Tonys and the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It's a love letter to the realest and cruelest face of the theatre. Five decades later and in a different country, it still holds its own.

A Chorus Line runs at Sadler's Wells until 25 August.

Photo credit: Marc Brenner