(Photo: courtesy IVRT)
Reviewed by Asa Fris
Inland Valley Repertory Theatre, Inc at University of La Verne
Thru August 2
RECOMMENDED
Marcel Almirantearena and ensemble. (Photo: Courtesy IVRT)
You just might’ve thought you were in Texas and not La Verne this past Sunday.
It was certainly hot enough, and there weren’t many clouds in the sky. Had you walked into Founders Hall at the University of La Verne to ask a second opinion, the plethora of cowboy hats for sale, and on the heads of volunteers, would not have eased your suspicion. And had you sat down in the Ann and Steve Morgan auditorium and witnessed Inland Valley Repertory Theater’s (IVRT) production of Footloose (written by Tom Snow and Dean Pitchford), you might have been convinced you really were in small town Bomont, Texas, and not La Verne at all.
Early in Act Two of Footloose, our protagonist Ren McCormack (Micah Munck) does something outrageous. He brings his classmates to a nearby dance palace, full of great dancing and live music.
See, in Bomont, the setting of our story, both music and dancing are banned. It was a decision made in response to the tragic deaths of four teenagers on their way back from a night out. It’s also a law that is fervently supported by Reverend Shaw (Patrick McMahon), who is the head honcho of town. While the kids in Bomont are used to the rule, Ren is not. He’s just moved from Chicago on the heels of his dad walking out on him and his mom. He knows he needs to show his classmates and friends exactly what they’re missing out on. And if they see how great dancing and music are, Ren hopes they’ll support him in challenging the town council to change the archaic law.
At its core Footloose, despite having a lot of fluff, isn’t just a vehicle for pop mega hits. “Footloose is actually the story of a man who’s lost his son, a boy who’s lost his father, and how those two help each other to heal,” writes Dean Pitchford in his foreword. It’s far from a nuanced discussion of grief, with many inconsistencies in its tone. As Joel Beers noted in his recent review of Footloose by One More Productions, placing Holding Out For a Hero, a song calling for a stereotypical heroic male white knight, after Learning To Be Silent, a solemn critique on the subservient role of women in a patriarchal society, is far from congruent in tone, and seems a product of “well we’ve got to place Holding Out For A Hero somewhere!”
Still, the through-line underneath is sincere, and this is what director Frank Minano makes central to the production.
This emphasis comes through most in the scenes between Ren and Ariel (real life husband and wife), who’s great chemistry together (phew!) combine to uplift the characters’ adolescent romance, a relationship built around their respective grief. And Micah Munck might not be the showiest performer on stage, but his simple approach to a final confrontation between Ren and Reverend Shaw hits home. One can’t help but feel for them both, as they reach out to each other over a generational and ideological gap.
Hey, remember the dance palace Ren brought his friends to? It wasn’t just outrageous because of how taboo it was for the kids of Bomont. It was also outrageously entertaining.
There we are, at the dance palace, where we find good ol’ country boy Willard Hewitt (Marcel Almirantearena) and the confident yet ever romantic Rusty (Sanlyn Carter) face to face. The two have been will-they/won’t-they, scene after scene. Well now there’s a dance floor, great music, and Rusty wants to dance. The problem is: Willard says he can’t.Rusty and company won’t accept that for an answer. They decide they’re gonna teach him how to move. Cue Let’s Hear It For The Boy, another one of the many mega hits written for the original 1984 film. Rusty sings, and Willard dances. Carter’s vocal performance is impressive and delightful, but Almirantearena really takes us for a ride.
There’s a rule of thumb that to perform something intentionally badly, you’ve probably got to be pretty great at said thing. That’s certainly true for Almirantearena, who at first hilariously bumbles around the stage, misinterpreting the moves he’s being taught. That is until someone likens dancing to the act of galloping on a horse. Willard is reborn. Suddenly he’s leaping through the air as impressively as Saquon Barkley over a Jaguars cornerback. He executes the sequence so well as to make an argument that he might actually be the best dancer you’ll see on the stage, a compliment in an afternoon of solid dancing, choreography by Kylie Molnar.
Though both Carter and Almirantearena are enjoyable throughout, Let’s Hear It For The Boy showcases their talents most conspicuously, generating one of those moments one yearns to experience in a musical.
Because the rendering of this production is so sincere, it’s easy to excuse the clunky staging, and the washed out effect of using LED’s so far away from the stage, which also covers the audience in light. And it’s clear, as a Texan myself, that there’s a sure absence of southern drawl, which causes much of the dialogue to fall flat, instead of warming up the ear like butter on a biscuit.
There’s more one could nitpick about, but given the previously mentioned pluses, and the solid work of supporting characters — Wendy Jo (Sydné Piatek), Urleen (Shayna Marie Mitchell), Ethel (Tiffany Berg McMahon, our second wife and husband duo), Chuck (Jackson Marcy), and the unforgettable Betty Blast (Mia Mercado) — these other shortcomings come and go with the wind.
Inland Valley Repertory Theatre, Inc., Ann and Steve Morgan Auditorium at the University of La Verne,1950 3rd Street, La Verne. Fri.-Sat., 7:30 pm, Sun., 2 pm; thru Aug. 2. https://app.arts-people.com/index.php?ticketing=ivrt Running time approximately 2 hours and 15 minutes, with intermission
