On Mother’s Day myself, my mom, my two sisters, and one of my sister’s old friends all went to see the final show of Footloose at The Palace Theatre. I’d been looking forward to this one, because Footloose the movie was often in rotation at our house when I was growing up. I’d seen most of a junior production years ago that my niecephew was in when they were in middle school, but I missed the ending, and honestly couldn’t remember much about it.
It was a good production, as always. The kids were great singers, there were tons of great dancers, and one of my favorite performers was playing the role of Ariel, so it was awesome to see her up on stage again. As for the show itself, eh… let’s just say it’s not one of my favorites. I’m glad that we went to see it, and everyone had a good time, but I probably wouldn’t opt to pay to see it again.
Not that there’s anything particularly wrong with the show, but there also wasn’t anything particularly great about it. I honestly prefer the movie by a lot, which is unusual for me when it comes to musicals. Maybe it’s because I was a little kid when I first saw the movie, but I was always very emotionally invested in Ren and Ariel’s stories. The negativity he experiences as the new kid in a conservative place, and Ariel fighting for her independence from her overprotective parents always felt like the most important part of the story. Sure the dancing and the songs were fun, but it was about these two teenagers coming into their own, and changing their lives, and the town for the better. Footloose the musical takes the teeth out the story too much for my tastes. Ren seems more written as a kid dealing with untreated ADHD, than the intellectual pushing back understandably at his first experiences of dealing with people who are conservative and closed off. Ariel’s character remains much the same from the movie, but her father the reverend is given too much stage time, and too many songs in my opinion. I think Footloose should be about the kids, not about the adults.
The kid who played Ren was very cute, and had good chemistry with the girl playing Ariel, both were great singers and dancers. Ren was pretty average height, and I thought it was funny when one of the lines referenced him being tall, when Ren’s rival Chuck was at least a full foot taller than him. They really ought to have tweaked that line slightly, but maybe there are rules against changing lines in productions like this? I don’t know, I know nothing about how theatre actually works.
I was looking forward to the character of Willard, and the scene where they teach him how to dance, but it was a little underwhelming and over very quickly. The kid playing Willard I had seen before playing the lead in Escape to Margaritaville, and he was fine, but he just didn’t bring anything fresh or interesting to the part. The girl who played Rusty was a lot funnier, and she and Ariel’s other two girlfriends stole the show in several scenes. One of the very first things that Willard does is a masturbation gesture after Ren asks him what kids do for fun in Bomont (BTW, can’t believe it’s BOMONT, and not BEAUMONT who named this town??), and my mother immediately grimaced and shook her head over that. This is the woman who gets upset when my sister and I don’t invite her to raunchy drag shows. She could NEVER.
Not to focus so much on Willard, but another thing that kind of sucked is that the guy who was playing Willard isn’t that great of a dancer. I get that Chris Penn in the movie isn’t the greatest dancer either, but for an actual musical, I thought it was the perfect opportunity for the whole, “OMG, he SUCKS at dancing, but now five minutes later he’s suddenly AMAZING!” So having him be just a mediocre dancer made the whole “Let’s Hear it for The Boy” number a bit… ho hum. The cowboy guy who dances with Rusty at the bar they all go to was actually more memorable of a character than Willard was, and he was on the stage for maybe… seven minutes total? But I digress, sorry Willard.
MOVING ON. Another weird thing about Footloose is the fact it’s a quasi-jukebox musical. There are some songs from the movie, and some original songs written for the musical. There is Ren’s ADHD themed “I Can’t Stand Still” number, but there are also a number of songs that the reverend, and his wife perform that were obviously not in the movie version. The guy playing the reverend was new to The Palace Theatre, and he actually had a really nice voice, but I hated how these songs affected the pacing of the show, and how they pulled so much focus from the kids. So while I enjoyed his singing voice, I really didn’t care to hear the reverend singing about how he felt. I could see maybe giving him one song to give the perspective of the conservative old folks, but he got THREE, one of which was a reprise of a another song, so it just felt repetitive and unnecessary.
There was also a song that Ren’s mother, Ariel, and Ariel’s mom sing together. It was a nice song, but it felt like they wanted it to be this girl power moment, but again, I thought it might have been better if Ariel had sang this together with her friends and it had been some empowering moment for all of them, since the whole theme of Footloose is the kids finding a way to move on and improve from the mistakes that the generation before you has made but… whatever. It’s Footloose, it’s not that serious, but this moment felt like they were trying to make it more serious in a new way, when I think the musical would have been better served to have been serious in the same way that the film was.
Another thing that was funny, was that they went SO HARD with the 80s fashions. At the beginning when Ren was still at his old high school, all the kids were wearing so much neon colors and tie dye and it was so stereotypical 80s, as opposed to what the 80s was really like. I weep for all the kids in that cast who thought that this was what people actually dressed like in the 80s. It’s just so funny compared to the movie where everyone dresses more country than anything, and there isn’t any neon in sight.
The kids were great though. They’d brought in a whole bunch of Palace Youth Theatre kids in to play the majority of the ensemble roles, and they were fantastic as usual. There is one particular kid who is SUCH a good dancer. He’s been performing since he was super little, and I could always tell he was just a natural dancer. It’s fantastic to see him out-dancing the dance captain. I really hope that kid does well for himself, but so many of them are just so talented. When we met the guy playing the reverend at the meet & greet, he mentioned that he was so impressed with all the kids, and he’s so right. The kids are always amazing.
So yeah, in a nutshell it was a fun show to go see, with a lot of great performers, but the musical itself just isn’t really one of of my favs. Still a fun day though. And my Instagram stalker FINALLY liked one of my posts when I shared photos from being at the show. Typical guy, huh? Only likes something I post when it’s about a show that HE’S in! 😂 I kid of course, but it did make me chuckle.
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