TheBanyanTree: High School Musical... in the OTHER Hollywood

[TLW]

Last night I went to our community Children’s Theatre spring musical.
JAILBIRDS, advertised as “Glee, behind bars.”  :->  It was a
production of an original script, written by a high school senior and
the adult director, with some original music and also some music
covers of contemporary artists.  It was three and a half hours long.
It didn’t need to be, but the  major influence in the writing was
screenwriting, not playwriting, so, in the places where the script
might say “CUT TO:”, the audience got to watch the actors look  at
each other, look around, wait for their light to go down, exit, pause,
the next scene’s actors trudged out, waited for the lights to go up,
and then started to think of their lines.  This will add an hour to
any evening of theatre.

I know, I know... “Don’t hate.”  Yeah, whatever.  I just get tired of
theatre of playwriting being the stepchild in this town.  But it is
inevitable, I know.

The girls in the cast (and this was a very clever idea) were shown as
mug shots in the lobby.  There were security guards at the entrance
with “metal-detecting wands”, and the Head Security Guard (who we all
grew to hate, of course) gave the pre-curtain speech regarding “No
phone, no texting” etc.  Cool and fun.

So there we are, inside a women’s juvenile delinquent correction
facility.  The facility had a program DART (Dramatic Arts Therapy),
which was on the line.  We followed the girls through their auditions
and rehearsals and production as well as their power plays, catfights,
lesbian love triangles, and bitch sessions.  I doubt there is any
correctional facility anywhere with this many white girls, and they
were really pissed about being there, let me tell you.

The whole thing was pretty impressive, people.  The script, as long
and long-winded as it was, did an astonishingly good job of
delineating twenty-plus characters.  They all had their story, they
all had their issues, they all had their characters and fully-realized
arcs.  This is no small task, people,  weaving together the disparate
tales of such a vast ensemble.

A very dark group of tales, of course.  No one died, but I wouldn’t
have been surprised if someone had.  One girl did jump off the roof
(of course) but she just hurt her arm.  There were several physical
scuffles and lots of name-calling.  And jabs at Texas and Fox news,
just in case your forgot you were watching the show in southern
California.
To be fair, there were also a couple of lines making fun of teens
attending "alternative artsy schools," so we do know where we fit in.
Pretty much.

The best dancer was Madeline Stephani.  She played “Diva,” who had
played the lead in the last seven prison shows.  Yes, she is Gwen
Stefani’s niece, and she was the bast dancer by far.  She was the one
who actually extended her arms and legs, instead of pulling them back
for fear they might hit someone else in the chorus line.  She could
sing and act, too.  She had some real talent.

The best actor, Max Messex, played the head security guard, Nelson
Bitter.  A humorless bully (of course), he showed commitment to what
wasn’t an easy role.  There wasn’t much nuance or shading, but if he’d
been twenty years older, I’d have believed him in the part.

The highlight of the evening was a song sung by Lisi LaFontaine.
Magical.  I felt like I was watching American Idol.  She comes by the
talent honestly; her father was Don LaFontaine, who you have all heard
before.  It is his voice that says “In a world. . .” on all those
movie trailers.  A lovely and generous man, who died unexpectedly a
couple of years ago.  His wife, Lisi’s mother, is Nita Whitaker, a
successful professional singer, and so Lisi got herself a great set of
pipes.  The story was set up that her character, Harper, kept wanting
a solo, but the Program Director didn’t think she had the range.  Then
she took over Diva’s solo at the last minute (so Diva could join the
group escaping from the prison), and the audience just sat there with
its entire mouth open.  Lisi had a beautiful presence and graceful
gestures, and appeared absolutely un-self-conscious about all of it.
The audience exploded at the end of that solo.  I was thrilled for
her.  And I know her father beamed.

I’m so glad I went, and glad I stayed past Intermission, which I
almost didn’t (the first act was an hour and forty-five minutes), then
a friend insisted there was an upcoming solo I could NOT miss.  It was
all a very impressive presentation, with parents and kids and friends
and neighbors joining in.  The program was full of the congratulatory
ads that were not the routine when I was doing teen theatre.  This is
probably lucky for me,  since my parents would have been baffled and
embarrassed by such an idea.  “Hide that light under a bushel basket,
kid, and if you have a LOT of talent, well, hell, get a BIGGER bushel
basket!”

JAILBIRDS was “Women in Chains” meets... well, not “Glee.”  “Women in
Chains” meets community theatre.  Just your highly irregular and
enjoyable Spring Musical.  In the OTHER Hollywood.