Entertaining Chicago

Chicago Theater Reviews | Reviews of Chicago Shows and more!

  • Home
  • About
  • Contact Me
  • PR Contact

Oriental Theater: Ghost The Musical Chicago Review!

March 1, 2014 By Alli Leave a Comment

Ghost The Musical Chicago ReviewOriental Theater Chicago 2014: As I exited the theater with the crowds of people who watched Ghost The Musical at the Oriental Theater this week, I noticed that the woman at the concession stand was waving a CD and reminding everyone that they could purchase a copy before leaving. And not one person did. That was a pretty good representation of the feeling that I got while watching this show – or rather, the lack of feeling.

Ghost The Musical Chicago Review: Ghost The Musical (starring Steven Grant Douglas, Katie Postotnik and Carla R. Stewart) is the same story of the famous movie starring Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore. A man and woman have a great love, do some pottery, he dies and they both have an emotional love affair with Whoopi Goldberg. I enjoyed the movie enough, but I was always bothered by the fact that the Demi Moore character Molly seemed to lack depth. I never really cared that she was sad. I wanted to, but I never connected with her. Unfortunately the entire two and a half hours of Ghost The Musical is the same experience.

The actors in the show performed well and performed earnestly. They had wonderfully powerful voices – when they could be heard over the music. Most of the louder numbers drowned out much of the singing, so the amazing belted notes are the ones that you heard. And they were great! That being said, none of the music resonated. There wasn’t one single song that you found yourself humming afterward and poor Ms. Postotnik sang one sad ballad after another. It’s just that they all felt the same.

Ghost The Musical Chicago ReviewOn a lighter note, Oda Mae Brown was hilarious from beginning to end. I could have done without her songs as well, but Ms. Stewart had a dynamic presence that made you want to watch her. Her grand musical entrance (along with her sisters) was fantastically funny and that is probably the only song I can truly say that I enjoyed and to which the entire crowd responded.

There was one area that I did think was remarkable and that was the lighting and special effects. Many of you will remember the scenes in the film where Sam has to learn to walk through a door and where he meets a man on a subway (“Get off my train!”) who teaches him to move physical objects. Those two scenes in particular were phenomenal to watch. I have my ideas of how they accomplished these amazing visual effects on a stage, but I don’t really want to know. As an audience member, it was an eye-opening pleasure to watch Sam slowly make his way through a door that by appearance (and some lighting) stayed intact.

Ghost The Musical Review ReviewThe train was a whole other experience. They had a movable set of train seats and railings on which many of the ensemble actors sat. As our “Subway Ghost” kicked and punched items out of people’s hands, slow motion and strobe lights would take over and these objects would float and spin through the air. It was my favorite part of the entire show, that two minute “dance.” Think of your favorite action movie that incorporates a car driving down the street at high speed and imagine all of the cups, papers and other extraneous items that fly out of the way of that car. Now imagine those items on a stage. It was fantastic.

There were a few other oddities that I won’t go into (like how there was periodically a group of people in either suits or street-wear performing like a dancing Greek Chorus, the constant attempt to make New York City another character by projecting fast-moving street and skyline visuals on background screens and how the song “Focus” performed by the Subway Ghost felt completely disjointed and like a sudden thrash-metal performance by Faith No More), but they left both me and much of the audience furrowing our brows.

All in all I would say that the actors did their jobs, the lighting, staging, costumes (I loved that the ghosts Sam met were a heavenly white from the chest up and regularly clothed below) and sets were effective, but the score and story were lacking. I won’t be seeing it again and I can’t recommend that you do either.

*Originally posted on Couponing For 4. Reposted with permission of the author.

Related Posts

  • Oriental Theater: Heartbeat Of Home Chicago Review!Oriental Theater: Heartbeat Of Home Chicago Review!
  • Oriental Theater: We Will Rock You Chicago Review!Oriental Theater: We Will Rock You Chicago Review!
  • Goodman Theatre: Ask Aunt Susan ReviewGoodman Theatre: Ask Aunt Susan Review
  • Rock Of Ages Chicago Review!Rock Of Ages Chicago Review!

Filed Under: Chicago Theater Reviews Tagged With: chicago, Oriental Theater, reviews, theater

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Image Map

Chicago Food & Bev b
Copyright 2022, Entertaining Chicago. All Rights Reserved. Custom design by Pixel Me Designs | Google+
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.Accept Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT