Review by anonymous
June 23, 2010My overall impression
Patrick Gelinas’ concept for Rehab! The Musical is interesting at its best. The idea and concept opens the door for a compelling and thought provoking musical, but the Chaos I witnessed onstage was nothing of the sort.
Helene Udy’s choppy and misguided direction leaves much to be desired. The stage at the Gleeson is rather large, but the miserably painted and poorly rigged backdrops cut the stage in half, giving the performers very little space to work with. Jill Laub’s choreography was messy, and not well executed. Bones Malones and Gelinas’ score was the shows best factor, but a poorly musically directed cast, led by Marijke Van Niekerk let the comedy in the songs fall completely flat, which perfectly matched the pitch of most the performers voices.
Gabriela Sosa’s portrayal of Michele, the crack addicted prostitute, was completely two dimensional, lacking any creativity and depth. Worse still was Bart Foley’s portrayal of Billy, the coke addicted man whose entire family recently left him. I have never experience an actor who looked so bored in his entire life.
Having never experienced a major drug problem, I would rather experience 30 days in rehab than suffer through this 90 minute musical again.
