Theatre Review: Carrie the Musical
A MuSt Production
23/3/24 - 24/3/24
Directed by Elise Siddiqui
Produced by David Cantor
Written by Lawrence D. Cohen
Reviewed by Callisto Lodwick
There’s something ironic about a group of university students staging a production set in high school. After all, haven’t we all just escaped that particular rite of passage: why would anyone be in any hurry to go back? Yet this is what MUST’s Carrie sets out to do, reminding everyone in the audience that no matter how bad their formative years, at least they weren’t murdered by a teenage girl with telekinetic powers.
This decision does mean that the audience is forced to watch theatre kids play a cast of characters far more popular than the stereotypical high school actor (one wonders if this show was chosen to enact such a fantasy). Taylor Colbeth (Chris) and Callum Wardman-Brown (Billy) are espeically entertaining character actors as the queen of men and her asshole boyfriend, and Hanna Ward and Jonathan Stock (Sue and Bobby) are genuinely affecting in their kindness. Eleanor White plays a Carrie that spends the entire first act hunched over like a pill bug, a choice that makes her Cinderella-esque transformation at the Prom and the destruction after all the more shocking.
Yet the star of the show is easily the singing: White is fantastic in her many solos, and the supporting cast—Ward, Colbeth, and Stock—are all equally strong. Best of all is Emily Speed’s performance as Margaret, Carrie’s fanatically religious mother: her vocals are haunting and powerful, and a duet between her and White early in the first act kept audiences glued to their seats (and left their mouths agape).
The lighting certainly helps here too—it’s would be challenging to create special effects showcasing Carrie’s supernatural powers in a real theatre, so the crew deserves a great amount of credit for working within the constraints of Buchanan Lecture Hall. Plenty of songs are drenched with blood-red lighting, and the production makes ample use of spotlights throughout the stage. The final drench of blood—which the audience has to wait a whole two hours for—was surprisingly convincing: use of black carpet to soak up the extra colouring meant the production team could go all out. While White’s dark hair camouflage the blood for a few minutes, by the finale her dress is covered in bright red steaks.
Unfortunately, the effects, sound mixing, and set dressing were plagued with errors in the opening night viewing of the show. Mics frequently weren’t turned in until an actor was several lines into speaking, nor muted until the audience had listened to a couple of curses muttered from backstage. The crew was unsure when certain set pieces were meant to come on or off the stage—once they took a table off only to rush it right back on again—and one spotlight was aimed at an actor’s knees instead of their face. It was clear the show hadn’t had enough tech rehearsals—something that would also have benefited the ensemble, since some of them appeared not to have fully learnt their blocking and choreography. Hopefully, a little more practice enabled the later show to run as smoothly as it deserved.
Carrie certainly has real potential: the case is phenomenal, and the creative directors have clearly worked very hard. Yet the production retains a distinct lack of polish that renders it at a lower-level than the truly jaw-dropping shows St Andrews students are capable of putting on. With a few extra rehearsals, Carrie could properly awe.
