Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Review of Dirty Dancing (Broadway in Chicago)

Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called Dirty Dancing. It was by Eleanor Bergstein and it was choreographed by Michele Lynch and the original choreography was by Kate Champion. It was directed by James Powell. It was about this girl whose name was Frances (Gillian Abbott) but the people most of the time called her Baby. And she was on vacation with her family (Alex Scolari, Mark Elliot Wilson, and Margot White) and she was trying to help out this girl Penny (Jenny Winton) who had become pregnant. But Penny is the lead dancer at this place and she has always done the dances. So she says that Baby should do all the dances for her while she is having an abortion. And while Baby is doing that she falls in love with the male dancer she has been dancing with, Johnny Castle (Christopher Tierney). What happens is that the romance starts to blossom and it starts to turn more serious. But because Baby is pretty young, she is worried that her parents will get worried. So she tries to keep it away from her parents, but it doesn't work out too well. And she has to protect Johnny but is not completely able to protect both of them. I think this is a really fun and exciting play. I was captivated almost the entire time, and now I get a lot more references in American culture.

The resort that they stay at, I don't know why they stayed there. No, I do know they stayed there because it was their friend Max's (Gary Lynch) business. But he has some serious problems with how his servers treat the guests, especially the female ones. What the servers would do is that they would just go up and seduce all the teenage daughters that were there. But I feel like I would never want to stay in this resort if everybody was talking all sexy all the time. It would just make some people feel uncomfortable. And the thing is, is that a few lines after he says "This is a family place," he says "And show the daughters a good time--romance them any way you want." I find it so terrible but funny how the thing he is worried about is fingers in the soup and he is totally fine with them sleeping with the daughters.

The dancing was just amazing. It seems like they put so much work and effort into it and it looks so beautiful. My favorite dance was the Mambo. It was just so vibrant and fun to watch. Even though in the show Baby is not supposed to get everything perfect, it still looked amazing and it was amazing. There was a part when Johnny and Baby were starting a dance where it happened almost every time that he had to bring his hand down and stroke it down her cheek to her butt. But then the thing was that every time he got near her chest area, she would giggle because she was so uncomfortable. And I don't blame her. I would feel the exact same way!

I thought that the watermelon scene was hilarious because of how nervous Baby was when she first met Johnny. She just blurted out "I carried a watermelon!" which I thought was very very funny. And I also loved the size of those watermelons. If they entered a contest for biggest watermelon, they would probably win it. Another one of my favorite funny moments was when Johnny and Baby were trying to do the lifts in the water. And I found that so funny that I almost died. They would keep trying and falling every time and splash in the water. But they weren't actually falling in water, they were falling in projections, which was very very funny. I also really liked when Baby poured ice down Robbie's (Scott McCreary) pants. Robbie was the boyfriend of her sister and also a cheating jerk.

People who would like this show are people who like amazing dancing, crazy resorts, and watermelon. I think a lot of people will really like this show. I liked it a lot and I thought it was really fun and engaging.

Photos: Matthew Murphy

1 comment:

Unknown said...

great show ever, as good as the mouvie but in live!
thank you Gillian for your elegant performance
JB