The tale of Go! The Musical is an epic one, retelling the lesser known “messy bits” within the Book of Exodus. The musical took on this huge challenge, answering with an ambitious, even more humungous, score.
Go! The Musical follows the story of Moses, flipping between his tenure at Pharoah’s Royal Courts and his later time in the desert after freeing the slaves. Narrated by his wife Zipporah, Moses’ journey encounters an identity crisis – is he a freedom-fighting leader, a loving husband, Egyptian Royalty? Plagued by indecision: both wanting to appease his followers who want to return to Egypt, but also heeding the advice of the Pharoah’s ghost goading him to crack down on his followers. Moses is left questioning everything he stands for.
The production was written as a sung-through musical. For those unfamiliar with that term, it essentially means no speaking-all singing – so think Les Miserables, Evita, or Miss Saigon. To my mind - a key feature of a quality sung-through musical is variation in tempo – happy peaks, sad troughs, thrilling build-ups, and gut-wrenching crashes. Whilst it’s scope was impressive, Go! unfortunately didn’t have much variety in its tempo. The music, whilst good, was consistently up tempo, with only short glimpses of still calmness seen in the second half in the form of the tender song Strangers. Whilst I was left wanting more variety in the pace, the songs did however allow us to see the immense vocal talent and range of the lead cast. In particularly Harel Glazer’s sublime tenor voice and the four-part ensemble’s stunning choral feats (Michali Dantes, Dora Gee, Mikka Juan and Noah Sinigaglia)
The initially unadorned set, comprising of merely 4 white pillars, was ingeniously transformed when illuminated to reveal the Pharoah’s hieroglyph-adorned palace. The gravitas was slightly detracted from by the two deconstructed pyramids – the clumsy manoeuvring by the ensemble could have been lost entirely and the structures could have stayed static. The set was complimented by an impressive lighting rig, consisting of expansive and effective designs by Daniel Taylor; especially during multiple solo power ballad moments – however outside of those moments the lights were at time somewhat distracting. Perhaps a “less is more” edit would have helped.
The best feature of the show was by far the cast. Harel Glazer’s troubled and contemplative Moses was sublime. He is a true talent who had the audience in the palm of his hand. His performance peaked during his self-reflective number Who Am I? Alexandra Doar’s Pharoah was hauntingly statuesque and omnipresent throughout the staging. The four-strong ensemble were consistently magnificent - they seamlessly morphed from slaves to astronomers, from beleaguered followers to snooty court advisors. Zipporah (Ayesha Patel), Moses’ wife, narrated the entire affair, and the rebel leader Korach (Rushand Chambers) provided even more conflict. Whilst both actors showed immense vocal talent, I felt theirs were roles that felt like after-thoughts in the story and I wouldn’t have missed them had they not been there.
Altogether Go! The Musical has all the bones to be a fantastic musical. Though the ambition is palpable and exciting, I was left feeling that the whole show needed to be edited down. The talent could have been more focussed-in rather than spread so widely. The score would really benefit from some changes in its direction, moving towards depth, by means of more variety in tempo, rather than pursuing breadth. There was times when a ‘less-is-more’ approach would have allowed the audience slightly more space to take a breath and appreciate the moment. With a story as grand as Go! has, maybe aiming to tell the whole is slightly too ambitious. Ultimately, the cast saved the performance for me. With a few tweaks, here and there, I see an extremely bright future ahead for Go! The Musical.
Comments