When a professional theater in suburban Chicago bills a lone actor above the title, expect great things. I mean, it doesn't happen very often. In the opening seconds of Theatre at the Center's production of the musical stage version of "Footloose," now open in Munster, Indiana, the actor in question, Matt Raftery (starring as Ren), executes an impressive aerial move, half hip-hop and half gymnastics. The show explodes to an exciting start!
It's too bad that only some of the following moments, and a few of the full company of actors, come close to equaling this moment. Raftery himself, I am sorry to say, is not consistently impressive, and neither is the material the hard-working company is trying valiantly to bring to meaningful life. It is hard to know where to give the credit, and where to find the fault. Raftery certainly is a gifted dancer and an appealing actor/singer. But things just don't add up here for this production as a whole, as much as one wishes they would.
For those who may not remember, "Footloose" began as a very successful 1984 film, which brought Kevin Bacon (he of "six degrees" parlor-game fame) to the height of his stardom. The movie also begat a million-selling soundtrack album. Not a musical film per se, it nevertheless seemed natural for adaptation into a stage musical, which was accomplished a decade ago by the same writing team that created the film (author and lyricist Dean Pitchford and composer Tom Ford). They were assisted by the show's Broadway director, Walter Bobbie, and carried along by hit songs that Pitchford wrote in the 1980s with music industry luminaries Kenny Loggins, Sammy Hagar, Jim Steinman and Eric Carmen.
The show opened on Broadway in the fall of 1998 and ran for 709 performances (a not unimpressive total); it was nominated for four Tony awards but won none. The songs that audiences already knew when they arrived at the Richard Rodgers Theatre ("Holding Out For A Hero," "Let's Hear It For The Boy," "Almost Paradise" and the hit title song) were also the ones they whistled on the way out. But the show's theme, that of moving on after grieving for a loss, is a universal one, and it still rings true. So, the show has its fans, and says some things worth saying.
But the theatrical script, with the movie's songs re-thought and mediocre new songs sprinkled on top in all the right places, holds two flaws which may be insurmountable. For you see, the setting of "Footloose" is a small town (called Bomont, and based on the real-life Elmore City, Oklahoma) where dancing is forbidden. That's a hard place to set a show in which audiences expect to see (and eventually do get to see) a lot of fun dancing.
Secondly, a lot of time is spent showing and talking about how rebellious the kids in the town are (curfew violations, motorcycles and the like), allegedly spurred on by Ren himself, a newcomer from Chicago. But all the kids want to do is have a high school dance-they aren't killing each other in turf wars, becoming addicted to drugs or fighting corporate corruption, for instance ("West Side Story," "Rent" and "Urinetown."). They aren't defying the draft ("Hair"). They really aren't all that rebellious, really, are they?
The show's real theme, recovery from loss, isn't made clear until the second act, by which time it's pretty apparent that the key adult characters just have to change their minds about dancing-not a compelling thing for a director to stage, actually. Somebody who's been saying "no" for a while can just say "yes," even if they do explain themselves and gallantly work through what's been holding them back. But please, authors, a little more dramatic tension would be lovely. Maybe a song about what's been lost.......
To be fair, there is a lot of tension depicted in TATC's production-it's just not very high stakes tension for anyone other than the most shelteredly conservative among the audience. The extended sequences built around the song "Somebody's Eyes" work very nicely, and the dialogue scene late in the show between Raftery (as the fatherless Ren) and the stalwart, dependable actor Larry Adams (as the stubborn-but with good reason-Rev. Shaw Moore, sonless) is very touching and honestly delivered. (By the way, Adams sings his first act solo, "Heaven Help Me," with just the right amount of simplicity and beauty.)
