The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musicial, which is finishing its four-performance sold-out run at the Helen Theatre, is a co-production of Baldwin Wallace University’s nationally recognized music theatre program and Playhouse Square. It is the 15th collaboration between these two organizations.
The musical, with words and lyrics by Rob Rokicki and book by Joe Tracz, is based on the first book in the multi-edition Percy Jackson series. It is in the fantasy genre similar to the Harry Potter books, aimed mainly at tween and teen readers, but also attracting older book buyers. The series has been praised as an “irreverent introduction to Greek mythology” that might persuade some kids to dig deeper into the subject.
The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musicial received positive reviews from critics in its original off-Broadway run, capped by a critique which called it “worthy of the gods.” The national tour was also generally praised.
Unfortunately, the Broadway version opened to widely negative reviews, capped by The New York Times theater critic who wrote, “it is both overblown and underproduced, filled with sentiments it can’t support and effects it can’t pull off.” He went on to say, the show has “all the charm of a tension headache.”
What’s the show about and how effective is the BWU/PlayhouseSquare production?
“The musical follows Percy Jackson, a teenager who discovers that he is a demigod and goes on an epic quest, with two of his friends, to find Zeus’s missing lightning bolt and prevent a war between the Greek gods.”
At the start of the epic tale, we find Percy Jackson, a 12-year-old boy with ADHD and dyslexia, on a field trip to the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. “While there, his substitute pre-algebra teacher, Mrs. Dodds, asks to speak with him. Once alone, Mrs. Dodds transforms into a Fury, a mythological Greek demon of Hades. Thanks to a pen that transforms into a sword named Riptide, thrown to Percy by his Latin teacher, Mr. Brunner, Percy manages to fend off and vaporize Mrs. Dodds.” After this incident, Percy is expelled from his school for failing to stay with the group.
Sally, his mother, assures Percy the quirks and abnormalities of a person is what makes them special. She takes Percy to the beach where she met the boy’s father, and the two run into Percy’s friend, Grover. Grover turns out to actually be a satyr, a Greek goat-like protector. And thus, we are swept on a fantasy world of Greek gods, talking squirrels, mythological creatures, friendships and a quest of discovery.
The local production is directed by Aurora’s Chris McCarrell, who graduated from University School and Baldwin Wallace University. He portrayed Marius in the Broadway revival of Les Miserables, appeared in the television version of Peter Pan, and originated the titular character in The Lightning Thief in its Off-Broadway premiere, 2019 tour and Broadway production.
McCarrell’s connection to the script has been a part of his life since 2016 when the play started its journey to off-Broadway. As McCarrell states, “The original production directed by Stephen Bracket dived into its scrappiness, its heart and its unhinged humor in a way that opened my eyes to a strikingly new fearless way to create theater.” He has taken that theory in directing the show, reinventing the staging, with the help of the students, for the BW/Playhouse Square production.
The staging works on many levels, falters on others. McCarrell and his talented cast have a major challenge at the outset. The Helen, the Allen’s small black box space, is only about 10 rows deep, making all the action up-close and personal. That works well for intimate plays and comedies, but not so much for a show that needs special effects and schticks and gimmicks to portray magic and fantasy.
There are no facilities for electronic images and no fly areas and wing space or trap doors for set pieces and special effects to appear and disappear. There is no curtain to close to hide set changes. In other words, the opportunity for the needed “magic” effects is limited. Only so much can be done with paper masks, fog and light changes. As a pre-tween young man sitting behind me loudly whispered about half way during the production, “When is this going to be fun like the movie?”
In spite of some excellent performances and attempts at directorial creativity, in spite of biased screams and applause of the many BW students in attendance at opening night, the show is missing the “wow.”
Danny Bó, he of cherubic face and soulful eyes, has the needed cuteness factor for portraying the multi-challenged Percy. He has a nice singing voice and stage presence. Jonah Warhaft (Grover) and Audrey Zahn (Annabeth), the other members of the trio on which the story hinges, did a nice job of developing the characters.
Too bad the decision was made to mic the cast. Some of the lines were lost, for even those of us in the front row, because the actors, assuming the mics would pick up their conversational-level projection, could not be heard. It would have been good training for the cast to learn to project to the last row of the theater.
The rest of the Menace Cast (the show was double cast with the other group titled the Garage Cast) included Kechante Baker, Mark Doyle, Will Boone, Sydney Whittenburg, Dario Alvarez and Avery Elledge. All developed their multi-roles with proficiency.
McCarrell closed his director’s note in the program with the message, “I hope all leave this theater ready to take on your own monsters, whatever they may be. Next to your best friends, and your own pens that will never let you down when you need them most as swords. Stumble on, my friends.” Nice thoughts!
Capsule judgment: Though the BW/Playhouse Square staging needs more schticks and awe to make it into the fantasy the story required, it gave the student performers a chance to do a different kind of musical and the audience a chance to get outside of their normal space and wander into an epic quest. Guess the kid behind me was right, however, when he said, “When is this going to be fun like the movie?”
[Written by Roy Berko, member: Cleveland Critics Circle, American Theatre Critics Association]