Moana Jr

I must admit that I have never seen Moana on film, I had heard about the film, but also had no idea of the story apart from the fact that it was set in, I presumed, the South Pacific.

Stamford Pantomime Players have assembled a large cast for this show, 29 in Ensemble A, 26 in Ensemble B and 22 in the Dance Troupe and 15 Principals, despite this large number the stage never looked overcrowded. The show opened with the three Ancestors Arielle, Holly and Aria with dialogue and leading the Ancestor Ensemble with ‘In the beginning’, quickly followed by the Ocean Ensemble singing ‘Tulou Tagaloa’. From the beginning we had good quality singing and choreography and the most amazing costumes for the Ancestor Ensemble and beautiful blue dresses for the Ocean Ensemble. All the company numbers filled the stage with colour, movement and sound, it almost didn’t need the digital back drop.

‘Where you Are’ (both parts) introduce us to several of the principals, Barney giving us a very vocally competent Chief Tui, nicely sung and performed throughout the show, a talented performance. Alongside him was Isla as his wife Sina, she was a perfect match for him with good vocals and a nice performance. These two support their daughter Moana very confidently performed by Cherry, Cherry gave us a great performance, both with her singing, clear dialogue and movement on stage. She had a great rapport with her ‘parents’ and her friends Hei Hei and Pua performed respectively by Ryan S and Lola Harris, these two had a great number singing together with Moana ‘How far I’ll Go’. Ryan brought out nicely the humour of his character, well played. Charlotte gave a nice portrayal of Gramma Tala with a nicely sung reprise of ‘Where you Are’. We also met a crab monster comprised of Millie as Tamatoa, her two claws Violet and Poppy S who were wonderfully costumed and had a well performed and sung ‘Shiny’ parts 1 and 2. One of the biggest stars of the show was Harmony who gave us a great Maui, this is a role often played by a boy. Harmony gave us a great performance, great singing with solo and duet renditions of Warrior Face parts 1 – 3 and displayed energetic physicality throughout. She had a great costume, suffered for her art with a big wild well fitted wig and had a great rapport with Moana. We had nice little cameos from Poppy B as Te Fiti and Naomi as Te Ka.

Digital backcloths are great for setting scenes although it did seem to have a textured /woven finish that blurred, lighting throughout was good and apart from a couple of crackles sound was good.

With the company numbers, as previously mentioned, we had good costumes, for the Ancestor ensemble the earth colours and patterns, what really helped with the Ocean Ensemble was the wonderful choreography and the blue which really represented the movement of the sea supported with singers along the back in blue tee shirts. The choreography was imaginative and even the youngest had good timing most of the time. The senior dancers worked very well with the younger ones and with the moving of the canoe It was good to note that there were seven boys within the two ensembles, well done lads, let’s see you again next year. A lot of work had gone into the making of props, headdresses, grass skirts as well as the costumes, there was a really effective canoe and a great mountain wheeled on and who made all those paddles? As someone who works with costume and wardrobe it was great that the whole cast wore matching jazz shoes, I wish adult groups could do this.

For a story that I didn’t know, I can say I now know it, so well done from the youngest to the oldest cast members for making the story clear. Well done to everyone who worked back stage and to Poppy and Charlotte for surviving the stress of creating a great show.

 

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