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Maria Kearns
Hot on the heels of their hit dance show Hollywood comes Part of your World, a new musical revue by the Luitingh Alexander Musical Theatre Academy (LAMTA) at Theatre on the Bay, until 7 December 2024.
Since the school’s inception in 2019, Cape Town audiences have come to expect remarkable things from LAMTA’s student showcases, be they energetic revues like 2022’s Being Steve and 2023’s Vintage Jukebox or ambitious full-scale shows like 2023’s world-class Spring Awakening and this year’s hit A Streetcar Named Desire.
With the students’ and creative team’s impressive track record in mind, it’s impossible not to take one’s seats in the Theatre on the Bay auditorium with a pleasant degree of anticipation ahead of LAMTA’s newest offering, Part of Your World, a celebration of the music of Alan Menken.
It sounds like a fail-proof recipe: well-trained young stars singing and dancing their merry way through film and Broadway hits from mega shows and Disney films like Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, Newsies, Sister Act, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and more (even though some of the composer’s most well-known numbers are excluded). It’s a disconcerting sign, therefore, that one comes away from the show ruminating on the stellar contribution made by the simple yet mercifully engrossing set design.
It’s an unfortunate fact that nothing’s as easy to spot on stage as a nervous, under- rehearsed performer, and this particular stage has scores of them —despite the students’ admirable attempts to keep the whole thing together with strong vocals, their unsure, stilted movements and distracted performances speak volumes. While the students are clearly giving it their all, the choreography feels somewhat lacklustre. The production leaves one with the impression that the creative vision did not clearly translate to stage.
The students certainly deserve praise for imbuing their parts with as much life as they could rally amidst the confusion; numbers like 'Zero to Hero', 'High Adventure', and 'Fabulous, Baby!' show them at their best and allow for a glimmer of the massive, energetic potential lurking behind the terrified chorus line to shine through. While their singing abilities are in evidence throughout, their dancing skills feel under-utilised and inhibited, and their performances mostly unencumbered by any evidence of grounded acting: Taken together, these facts are often evidence of a rushed process. Despite the students’ best efforts, it remains a true pity that this latest showcase does not rise to the heights achieved in previous productions.
Part of Your World is running at Theatre on the Bay until 7 December 2024. Tickets cost between R180 and R250 and are available through Webtickets or by calling 021 438 3300.