Ghost the Musical at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater
If you’ve seen the 1990 film Ghost, starring Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, and Whoopi Goldberg, you’ll know something about the West End’s most recent contribution to the Great White Way, Ghost the Musical, a gaudy affair with a book by Ghost’s screenwriter, Bruce Joel Rubin, and music and lyrics by Dave Stewart, one half of the British pop duo the Eurythmics, and “Man in the Mirror” songwriter Glen Ballard. Both Ghosts have flat and uninteresting story lines, employ flamboyant yet lackluster special effects, and only caught my interest in the scenes employing Da’Vine Joy Randolph as Oda Mae Brown (Whoopi Goldberg did it in the movie), a con-woman who poses as a psychic until discovering—to her dismay—that she actually is one.
If you haven’t seen either Ghost, perhaps a quick orientation to the musical is in order. Banker Sam Wheat (Richard Fleeshman) is living his dream, fully equipped with a high-paying job, loving girlfriend, Molly (Caissie Levy), and supportive best friend and assistant, Carl (Bryce Pinkham). Just when everything seems to be going his way, Sam is shot by vigilante Willie Lopez (Michael Balderrama). However, instead of passing on naturally, Sam is trapped between worlds as a ghost, unable to touch or affect the world around him, and unheard and unseen by regular humans. In his new ethereal form he learns that, thanks to Lopez, Molly too is in grave danger. Desperate to communicate with her, he invokes psychic Oda Mae Brown, who can hear but not see him. In a race against time, Sam and Oda Mae rush to keep Molly out of danger and bring Sam’s killer to justice. It’s a story delivered by performers who, somewhat like the dead, are patently uninteresting; people whose side you would disincline to be on even if, among the chaos, it were clear whose side you should be on.
Not that, if you go to see Ghost the Musical on Broadway, you’ll necessarily notice the plot. That’s because the team that staged Ghost couldn’t get past the fact that it is based on a movie, even if it is a movie that is nearly devoid of embellishments. The result is a musical that is painfully flashy, loud, and equipped with so many lights, explosions, and unnecessary luminosities as to blind the audience. Screens replace set pieces, stage depth, and even dancers. (Yes, as the ensemble trots behind the main characters, colored outlines do the same dance moves on the monitors behind them, which is excruciatingly redundant. What is the point? Are the show's British producers hoping, like factory owners turning to robot workers, to eventually entirely replace their dancers with images on a display?)
As if that weren’t enough, the score is so derivative; the lyrics so uninspired that if you listen closely enough, they sound the same number after number. Even Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s entertaining performance as Brown couldn’t match the soul-numbing repetitiveness and stupidity of her song “I’m Outta Here,” in which she celebrates the acquisition of ten million dollars with such vapid lines as “I’m outta here! I’m off to the Bahamas / I’m outta here! So pack my pink pajamas.”
Would that something could be done to awaken Ghost the Musical. Its case is simply hopeless. It’s a puzzling olio of mostly maladroit actors and actresses and a creative team with no clear compass. My guess is that, like Sam Wheat, the musical will soon expire, but unlike him, it will not wake up again, supernaturally or otherwise.
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