"Xanadu" Reviews

Image at the Sentinel.

I was waiting for Richard Connema's review:

This is a fun musical with 1980s style disco music and a talented, young, energetic cast under the direction of Stephanie Temple, with musical direction by G. Scott Lacy. It is something that would shine in Forbidden Broadway revues. Recent graduate of San Francisco University Chloe Condon makes her N.C.T.C debut playing Clio. This talented young songstress has a charming singing voice that was not done justice on opening night due to a poor sound system. Hopefully, that has been rectified.

Jesus Martinez Jr. is actually an opera singer who just graduated from DePaul University and, as Sonny, has excellent reverberation on his songs. He ambles through the stupidities with assurance. (When Sonny enters the hallowed halls of Zeus, he says, "Just like it looks in the '80 film Clash of the Titans.") He also has some of the best legs I have seen on the stage this year. The two actors have thematic resonance singing "Magic" and "Suddenly." Nikki Arias and Jaimelee Roberts are peerless as two Muses of myth, Melpomene and Calliope, costumed in haute Grecian chic by Jeffrey Hamby. Both can really belt on the song "Strange Magic" along with Angel Burgess who is very good as Erato. Molly Kruse gives a fetching performance as Euterpe.

The Muses include two outstanding male actors. Alex Rodriquez plays Terpsichore, the muse of the dance, and this guy certainly can dance. He does a bang up job tap dancing in one of the numbers. And Nathan Marken is a real hoot as Thalia, and really camps it up when he plays Mercury in a scene.

A real highlight of the show is Joe Wicht playing Danny the owner of the roller rink. He has the undesirable task of performing a role originated by the legendary Gene Kelly. Joe is able to balance both the humor and the narrative in this wild production, and he has an excellent singing voice.

The Bay Times:

Like the flick with Olivia Newton-John starring, it is the tall tale of a beautiful young Greek muse, Clio (played by perky Chloe Condon), one of nine daughters of Zeus who descends from ancient Mount Olympus smack dab into the ’80s in Venice Beach (which she mistook for ancient Venice, Italy). Her job is to inspire a struggling young artist, Sonny, (played by cute Jesus Martinez Jr.) who hates his artwork and plans to end it all until rescued by Clio, who changes her name to Kira and her accent to Australian. That last is a little in-joke on Olivia N.J.’s Aussie accent. Previously Clio was a muse (in the form of a Southern belle with the drawl) to a ’40s wannabe clarinet player, Danny (Joe Wicht, also known in drag as Trauma Flintstone), who presently has aged, given up his music, and become a rich but unsatisfied real estate player.

Meanwhile Clio’s muse sisters watch the action from above, then join Clio on earth, with one evil sister, Melpomene (brilliant Nikki Arias), and her accomplice sister, Calliope (deadpan Jaimelee Roberts), being terribly jealous of Clio as head muse and therefore placing a curse upon her to fall in love with a mortal and create art – two forbidden actions that should immediately send the perpetrating goddess to eternal damnation in Hades. The other sister muses are Erato (Angel Burgess), Thalia (a drag role for Nathan Marken), Euterpe (Molly Kruse), and Terpsicore (Alex Rodriguez in drag). The ensemble cast (except for Danny) end up eventually wheeling around the stage on roller skates, which is a treat in itself. They really are accomplished with some impressive choreography (director Stephanie Temple, take a bow) and skating ability (thanks to Redwood Roller Rink coaches Aubrey and Sara Orcutt).

...You will be immediately drenched in 1980s lingo, from the very start when an offstage valley girl, like, totally tells you to turn off your cell phones and electronic devices that haven’t been invented yet, like, for sure. The dialogue freely utilizes ’80s slang and plays off the youthful Sonny not comprehending culture references that much older Danny frequently makes. The players occasionally break the fourth wall and speak right to the audience. And there are many in-jokes making fun of the Xanadu movie, not to mention some 1980s lackluster arts. The players might even explain why there are only seven of the nine muses present, as well as the curse of double-casting (seven members each play two other characters, and two are quadruple-cast).