View from the Green Room: Rock saves the planet and the Mall!
Nicole O'Rourke as Oz, Alex Kavanagh as Scaramouche, Jake Whybrow as Galileo and Dara McCarthy as Brit, in Tramore Community Theatre Group's production of We Will Rock You at the Theatre Royal. Photo: Joe Evans
The planet is safe. In a dystopian future, autocrats snatch dissenting voices, imprison and torture them. Thought is controlled and manipulated by anonymous voices on the internet but rock and roll rises to the challenge.
Tramore Community Theatre Group’s ‘We Will Rock You’ (often abbreviated as WWRY) is a jukebox musical based on the songs of British rock band Queen with a book by Ben Elton. The musical tells the story of a group of Bohemians who struggle to restore the free exchange of thought, fashion and live music in a distant future where everyone dresses, thinks and acts the same.
The entire show is really a vehicle for Queen songs with a contrived storyline so paper-thin that it has to be constantly repeated so that the audience gets it.
The joy of this show lies in the performances and the ability of the principals to deliver Queen’s iconic songs.
Queen songs are difficult. Freddie Mercury’s voice was an astonishing falsetto and the harmonies are tricky. So…hats off to Musical Director Caoimhe O’Connor for pulling all that musical mix of solos, harmonies and complex rhythms together in a Halloween goody-box that has the audience clapping and singing along.
It’s a show that needs strong leads and Tramore Musical Society are blessed with the talent here tonight. Fethard’s Jake Whybrow is a powerful Galileo. This young actor has a colourful high tenor and can reach all of Freddy Mercury’s falsetto notes. His Galileo runs from subtle young lover through visionary dreamer to passionate rebel and has a gentle comic touch.
And he’s well matched with Tramore’s Alex Kavanagh, who won the Green Room Award for her astonishing performance as Carole King in ‘Beautiful – the Carole King Musical'. Her Scaramouche is a wonderful mix of defiant rebel, punk teen and feisty modern heroine who doesn’t entertain fools. Their duets are the show’s highlights… ‘I want to break free…Under pressure…You’re my best friend…Who wants to live forever…Hammer to fall’ and their journey is the show’s storyline.
Dara McCarthy and Nicole O’Rourke are combative rock-warriors Brit and Oz and this pairing’s strong singing and quirky characters combine to make a huge impression. ‘I want it all…Headlong…Crazy little thing called love’ are headline numbers that build and build when they combine with Galileo and Scaramouch along with the big chorus. Skyler Cliffe completes the major rebel roles and gives a fine performance as the likeable Buddy when filling in the blanks in the script.
Every drama needs a villain. Or villainess. And lucky us because we’ve got two towering performances from the excellent Molly Mae Power as Commander Khasoggi, who leads an army of Matrix-type spies in their search for dissenters. Vicki Graham is a menacing Killer Queen who is relentless in her cruelty and her search for dissenters. Her performance of ‘Another one bites the dust’ contains menace, fear, power and just a twinge of vulnerability that there may be a power out there in rock n’ roll land that could kill her dictatorship.
Director Evan O’Hanlon keeps a strong pace and does well to define the separate characters so clearly. He has an intuitive feel for young performers and gets the most out of the comic situations they find themselves in. Choreographer Ali Reville’s dancing design separates the institutional, military, marching style of the commander’s forces from the free-wheelin’ hippy style dance routines of the rebels.
On opening night, Ben Naughton’s lighting design is futuristic, although there are some dark spots where actors disappear into semi-darkness. Evan O’Hanlon has some very clever stage videos of apocalyptic London and a graphic design that is also futuristic and attention-grabbing.
I don’t know whose idea it was to bring down the house curtain but it happened three times to facilitate a scene change when a gauze and black out would have sufficed. The only time the house curtain comes down is when the show ends because it breaks the connection between the audience and the world of the show.
Tramore Community Theatre Group’s ‘We will rock you’ is loud, powerful, tuneful, entertaining and packed with talent. This society has a great future in Waterford theatre.
