The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast heralded the advent of the mega-musical in South Africa. With High School Musical (HSM) the corporate musical comes of age. It is not merely a question of the scale of enterprise, HSM’s very DNA is corporate. Naturally then it is less about theatre and more about Hollywood entertainment.
In the first place, it is an invention of the Disney Corporation with all the financial muscle that comes with that conglomerate. Using a reality television audition show it is packaged from birth. The story board and characters are a calculated result based on marketing appeal and well-worn formulas. Its raison d’etre is to make money by giving people what they have already proven they want to see more of. Based on the Disney Channel’s movie (already in threequel) the full stage version is a global phenomenon with sold out seasons in the United Kingdom , Europe, Australia and more than 40 cities across the United States.
The 11-piece band under the baton of Charl-Johan Lingenfelder and the 32-member South African cast, many of them making their debut, are all in top form and do make one terribly proud.
So, is the critic happy with the phenomenon? W.H. Auden’s satricial poem on the unknown citizen springs to mind: The question is absurd. Had anything been wrong we would certainly have heard.
