Expect great things from these students

Published Jun 23, 2015

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EXPECTATIONS…

DIRECTOR: Rotislava Pashkevitch

CHOREOGRAPHER: Lesego Baloyi

WRITER/ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: Hulisani Ndou

CAST: Students of first-, second- and third-year Musical Theatre and Dance at Tshwane University of Technology with alternating leads

VENUE: Breytenbach Theatre, Sunnyside

UNTIL: Saturday

RATING: ***

The name already tells you that this is an ambitious project, but after witnessing a night of energy, enthusiasm and passion from everyone on (and off) stage, musical theatre is alive in Pretoria.

The aim of these productions is to give students the chance to perform, to go through the rehearsal processes with musicals they might encounter in the “real world”, but they’re also giving a nod to South African theatre and what it means to live here with especially some of the ensemble numbers that blew one away.

With a cast of 60 plus, the possibilities are endless, but that probably also presented problems which makes this an uneven production. It remains a training exercise and, as such, the students have been put through their paces and it shows. Especially the ensemble numbers like They Don’t Really Care About Us, African Drum Song, Broadway Here I Come and more are beautifully executed and a joy to watch for the professionalism and the passion.

But again the show is let down by sound. It obviously is a problem in the theatre, but perhaps more care should be taken to work around it by bringing the solo singers to the front more often, allowing for more quiet moments when soloists sing and perhaps dividing solo numbers more evenly not to tax (and sometimes strain) some of the young voices when they’re tasked with too much.

There’s astonishing talent on that stage, but the obstacles are sometimes too big an ask. In the opening number of the second act, for example, the poignancy of the message is lost because the articulation isn’t there and when you’re so intent to put something across, your audience has to get it. They don’t know the words, so they have to listen and that was some-times tough in these conditions with too much other sound happening.

The text was also too wordy with too much postulation which worked against the idea of saving theatre and artists because they give us a better world. It should have been much more stripped and with the exuberance of the musical numbers, the impact would have been stronger. It doesn’t all have to be piled into one show. The secret of being an artist is not to be too precious about your babies and to know what to keep and to let go. It also allows the performers to focus and concentrate. Even the best companies battle to keep their focus for that length of time.

But keep in mind this is a student production and you have to admire that with this large body and in an attempt to work as broadly as possible, they put together their own show. That’s a mammoth task and one that might have got the better of anyone – yet much of it was a delight to watch.

In all this exuberance though, it is important to watch the individual performances, to ensure that the students understand it’s all about the audience and the story. It’s not about individual performances but a cohesive whole. In the end, one couldn’t help but feel that this is an extraordinary group of students, future musical theatre performers, which holds much promise for the future of theatre.

l Performances: 7pm, with matinees on Saturday at 3pm.

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