Neighbours The Musical! A Dismaying Waste of Time

There was a moment in Goya Theatre’s production of Neighbours The Musical when it all came together. It happened when a group of neighbourhood kids, whose lives are purportedly being examined in this show, break into a tuneful and amusing ditty called What Will I Be. The song dealt with that most familiar of childhood preoccupations — what do I want to be when I grow up — but here it was enlivened by clever lyrics, lively music and performances which survived the dire staging and which showed genuine sparkle and spontaneity.

Would that the rest of this Manitoba-bred musical was as engaging. Unfortunately, this show about “those moments of interaction” in a neighbourhood children’s playground was a dismaying waste of time. To be sure, there was a likeable score from composer Craig Cassils and a solid musical contribution from a small instrumental combination under the guidance of music director John McGovern. However it would be an exaggeration to call the performances of the 10-member cast effortless. Let’s just say that they tried hard but that their past musical theatre credentials weren’t sufficient to rescue them from a largely no-win situation. They seemed largely rudderless under the uninspired direction of Emily Veryard.

Maria Mespolet had some fun as Monica, an effervescent kid in a wheelchair, provided you ignored the reality that no kid her age would talk like this. Michael Mcsheffrey showed the right swagger in the cliche role of the playground bully, but when script writers Robin Richardson and Craig Cassils ushered ed him into an economic dissertation about how to make money off his vulnerable playmates, you started saying — wait a minute, how old is this guy supposed to be?

Indeed, Neighbours The Musical prompted more than one question. Who, exactly, was this show aimed at? And how old are these kids? The show is all over the map on that score. Again and again, the writers gave these playground youngsters dialogue and sentiments which struck consistent false notes because of their maturity of the lines. Adult actors may have been portraying them, but their characters shouldn’t have been sounding as though they were adults themselves.

It is possible for adult actors to succeed in plausibly portraying children on stage — but you need strong dramatic material to begin with. It can happen with a show like You’re A Good Man Charlie Brown. It happens all the time with Peter Pan. The stage version of William Golding’s Lord Of The Flies can be a harrowing experience — but it works with adults playing youngsters creating carnage. However, a solid script must come first — that and direction which responds to the special needs of the material.

In the case of it Neighbours and Goya’s production of it, performers seemed largely cast adrift. Their hard-working efforts were not sufficient because they were working with inferior material which rarely allowed them to inhabit their characters effectively.