Hot or not? Earth, Wind & Fire Show Lukewarm At Best
Hot Feet, the new musical with songs old and new by Earth, Wind & Fire making its world premiere at the National Theater, inevitably will be compared to its juke-box-soundtrack predecessors, from the Billy Joel-driven Movin' Out to the Beach Boys bash Good Vibrations. And while those shows are frequently derided by the theater-snob community, Hot Feet's curse is that it may not even connect with mainstream audiences: it lacks the guilty-pleasure infectuousness of a Mamma Mia!, and its cliché-riddled plot doesn't even showcase its solid songbase as it could.
In a nutshell, Hot Feet, the brainchild of Earth, Wind & Fire founder Maurice White and director/choreographer Maurice Hines, is a retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Red Shoes", with a healthy dose of A Chorus Line thrown in as well. Kalimba (Vivian Nixon, whose dance talent is undeniable but whose vocal chops are questionable) wants to be a dancer, despite the objections of her mother (Ann Duqesnay, lending starpower with her booming, rich voice and commanding presence). Kalimba manages to get cast in a show, and even falls for the choreographer, Anthony (Michael Balderrama, who's a bit bland but can really move). Things are going great, but what she doesn't know is that the show's creator, Victor (Keith David, consistently transcending the dribble he's forced to deliver, even when his mic isn't working), has made a pact with the devil (a manic, vocally-inconsistent Allen Hidalgo), and Kalimba's soul's in jeopardy if she takes center stage.
The production Tuesday night suffered from an assortment of tehnical difficulties, with performers singing just sharp of the music, curtains crashing down on characters, microphones buzzing or fading out, and background and foreground vocals not matching up. None on its own would have been worth mentioning, but it added up to a more amateur-feel than one would expect from a production with this kind of pedigree.
There are some questionable decisions made in Hot Feet; as a dance driven show, it often uses choreography to communicate beautifully such plot points as the threatened romance between Kalinda and Anthony. Unfortunately, it feels the need to spell out the conflict using inane dialogue before it even gets to the dancing. The sets and staging, from large pairs of glittering red shoes, Disney-light-show-esque flames and neon signs, are pure Vegas, for better or worse. Occasionally, there are choreography issues: Kalinda's solo dance audition, for example, isn't innovative and showcasing enough to prove to the untrained eye that she's a cut above the rest as a dancer. The decision to have members of the cast perform some songs onstage, and have other numbers done by disembodied voices from offstage, often produces the feel of a bad karaoke night. Finally, featured hits like "September" and "Shining Star" - classic, undeniably fun songs - often don't get used as more than background music.
Perhaps with some adaptations, Hot Feet could have more of a future. There are moments of breathtaking dancing and impressive tumbling, like the sexy "Serpentine Fire" number starring the washed-out-dancer character Naomi (Wynonna Smith), who is flanked by a chorus of shirtless male dancers who lift her in the air to move her snakily across stage. The costumes, from the seductive black flame leotard worn by Kalinda to some silver, space-age-type get-ups, often pack a visual punch. And the final tour de force number, the show-within-a-show, neatly wraps up the plot's loose ends in a charged explosion of movement. But if you're selling the show as a reminder of how much we loved Earth, Wind & Fire's sound, you've got to give us a little bit more (and in some cases, a bit less) to your audience dancing in its seats.
Hot Feet runs through April 9 at the National Theatre. Tickets range from $41.25 to $151.25. Visit the theatre's website. Photo above by Paul Kolnik.