Footloose Review

Title of the play: Footloose

Author: Walter Dobbie and Dean Pitchford

Date on which you viewed it: 3/3/19

Location: Cheshire Academy Black Box Theater

Director: Mrs. Guarino

Major Actors: Ren - Tony Wang, Ariel - Livvy Williamson, Reverend Moore - Aaron, Vi Moore - Jenna D., Ethel - Cassidy, Chuck - Nan, Willard - Ray, Rusty - Mao, Wendy Jo - Caroline, Urleen - Amelia, Wes - Nate, Etc.




The show footloose was the 2019 winter musical production at Cheshire Academy. Footloose follows the journey of a Chicago born teenager, Ren McCormack, that moves to a small Midwestern town named Bomont with his mother Ethel McCormack after his father abandons them. Ren goes into shock after discovering that Bomont had banned dancing, singing and rock music after a bridge accident about five years prior. There the Reverent (Shaw Moore) has nearly complete control over the entire town. In Bomont Ren struggles to fit in and change the laws about public dancing, he befriends Willard Hewitt and together they try to change the laws and public opinion on dancing. Ren also has the eyes for the rebellious teen Ariel Moore, the preacher's daughter, who is dating the aggressive Chuck Cranston. With Willard, Ariel, and their combined friends set out to get Bomont to lift the ban on public dancing.

Footloose has one major theme that I want to focus on and that is the very clear and distinct theme of rebellion. This theme was so prominent because of the color associated with it and the goals that were being achieved throughout the show. In order to get this message across the female actors who went through acts of rebellion would wear red, and specifically a red rose on scenes where they rebelled against the Reverend. This was also shown in Ariel Moore (Livvy) wearing progressively more red as the show went on. This gave the impression of a movement starting and building momentum because Ariel was one of the most rebellious characters from the star she was often the one who highlighted this red color for rebellion the most. We used the red roses for the mother in scenes where they fought the common belief and stood up, usually for their children against in the ways of the town, to help them get the ban removed.

For me, the best actor was Tony who played Ren McCormick, I loved how he took on the role and how much he came out of himself. Tony is really shy outside of the theater and seeing him come in as a freshman he walked in and embraced the role amazingly. I was really proud of having to chance to see him grow and learn, he spent a lot of time learning and trying to perfect his pieces and scenes. When Tony was on stage he made sure you use multiple levels and different blocking movements, he was really good at making sure he used his whole body. For example, in Can’t Stand Still Tony climbs on the blocks and uses levels here to move around he also jumps around and does cartwheels to use the whole stage and use both the highs and lows of it. Similarly, in songs like Footloose or the Finale Tony had sections where he spread his arms and in again in Can’t Stand Still he did movements with his feet he drew attention to lower levels. Aswell when he was in scenes like the junkyard and Mama Says, he was sitting on blacks and moving around to bring the eyes down. Tony also had to be pushed around a lot in scenes and learn how to rollerskate for songs like Holding Out For A Hero, which is really difficult, but Tony was always a team player and wanted to do the best for his character.



Overall, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the show. Because I was in it there was a different feel and dynamic but similarly going off of what I saw from the monitors there were quite a few moments that felt awkward. Often times these were in different shows and were minor flaws that were different based on reviews that I have heard from numerous people the dancing has some awkward moments and thigs didn’t flow as well as they could have. I saw this a lot in Somebody's Eyes, I think that there was always some confusion on which way people were going and how their hands were supposed to be. I think another part of this was when there was some room for them to improvise dancing when this was going on there were some awkward moments. Again, seeing it every night I was more focused on details and some of this was picked up by audience members and some of it wasn't. But the dancing was not the strong moment of the entire show. With the staging, I liked that we often took advantage of the black box theater and a more minimalist side. I liked using mainly sections of the stage at a time, it gave the show a really nice personal feel to the show that creating really large scale sets might not have given. I think that on top of that Footloose had some elements that were fairly weak within the storyline. In songs like Somebody's Eyes having the vignette people not wear gloves were often mistaken for people losing their gloves, this caused some confusion and not getting the message across, the same with the prologue I found that a lot of people didn't understand it until the end or in many cases until someone had explained it to them after the show. The same thing also went for the roses I had to explain to at least five people what the roses were for. On the other side, the show had some great scenes that included the town council, this was very dynamic and features a lot of characters and moments for students, it also gave a good example of the power dynamic. Another scene that was strong was Almost Paradise the staging for the scene was very well done to create a very strong emotion and it well well staged with lighting to give the effect of kissing and then shutting the lights. Another strong scene was the talk that Ren had with Shaw because there was a lot of raw emotion in that scene that propels the story and allowed the audience to learn about the characters motives. Overall, Footloose was a strong musical that showcased many young talented voices and was a great experience of dance into the theater department as well as teaching a much larger cast and stage crew. I have much more to say but this is already too long.