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Power Struggles Over Pep and High School Popularity |
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| Written by news desk - nytimes.com | ||||
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The jubilant young dancers in the new musical “Bring It On,” at the Ahmanson Theater here, should probably be racking up frequent-flier miles, so often are they airborne in this featherweight show about competing high school cheerleading squads. The director and choreographer, Andy Blankenbuehler, has clearly schooled himself in the elaborate acrobatics that have become the standard for teams competing in the national finals, an event that has long been televised on ESPN. The primary delights in “Bring It On” are the breathtaking displays of human fireworks that send the show’s well-drilled dancers flying skyward, forming towering human pyramids, or tumbling across the stage backward, like electric-powered Slinkys. When the cast is earthbound, this enjoyable but trivial musical generally is, too, leaping back and forth across the line between spoofery and sincerity in depicting the rituals and rivalries of school life. Its semisweet flavor is much like that of “Lysistrata Jones,” the musical opening on Broadway next month that is also set among the sis-boom-bah crowd, albeit in college.
From left, Adrienne Warren, Taylor Louderman and Elle McLemore in "Bring It On: The Musical" at the Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles. And yet for all its cheery air of inconsequentiality, “Bring It On” is an intriguing collaboration among artists with serious Broadway cred. The score is a tag-team effort from the Tony-winning Lin-Manuel Miranda, from “In the Heights,” and Tom Kitt, the Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer of “Next to Normal,” here working with the lyricist Amanda Green. The book is by Jeff Whitty, who’s got his own twirling Tony on the mantelpiece, for “Avenue Q.” Perhaps because of the firepower of the talents involved, the musical, which plays in Los Angeles through Dec. 10 before moving on to San Francisco, Denver and Houston, owes less than you might expect to the popular movie that inspired it. Not that there was much inspiring material to work from. Although the film spawned multiple sequels, it’s wafer-thin and insipid. The musical borrows just the cheer-squad background and the rivalry between two schools — one populated by entitled blondes and the other by a multicultural mix of less affluent kids — for the shining trophy awarded to the best squad at the climax. And while the first movie was all about the blondes, Mr. Whitty has found a clever way to spread the story more equally between the two schools. Campbell (Taylor Louderman), in the equivalent of the Kirsten Dunst role in the first film, is head cheerleader at the more wealthy and white Truman High until a sudden quirk of redistricting forces her to attend nearby Jackson High, which doesn’t even have a squad. Horrors! Along with her fellow redistrictee, the plump, cheery misfit Bridget (a terrific Ryann Redmond), who has always been relegated to the humiliating role of Bucky the Parrot (the school mascot), Campbell has to find her way in this strange new environment, where pep is a dirty word, and the campus is ruled by the imperious Danielle (Adrienne Warren), who leads a dance crew. Danielle establishes her contempt for Campbell’s driving passion in the lively number “We Ain’t No Cheerleaders,” backed up by her sassy fellow crew members Nautica (Ariana DeBose) and La Cienega (Gregory Haney). |
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