newjerseynewsroom.com

Musical version of a romantic movie offers some astonishing stagecraft

BY MICHAEL SOMMERS

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

BROADWAY REVIEW

Better look out, “Spider-Man” -- here looms up “Ghost The Musical,” a wildly flashy new Broadway spectacle likely to haunt your claim for special effects awesomeness.

Some astonishing visual effects and striking production designs often make “Ghost The Musical” – aw, let’s just call it “Ghost” -- amazing to behold at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater, where this not-so-bad musical romance opened on Monday.

Of course, my eyes and ears practically were falling out of my old silvery head by the time this relentless music video of a show was through, but spectators more appreciative than I am of extreme barrages of visuals and sound might enjoy its blinding excesses.

You’ve seen the 1990 Patrick Swayze-Demi Moore-Whoopi Goldberg movie, right? It is a romantic fantasy about a murdered New Yorker who communicates with his grieving girlfriend through a dubious storefront psychic. That golden oldie, “Unchained Melody,” was its musical theme.

Expect to hear that evocative vintage song again here, several times, as well as plenty of new rock music by Dave Stewart and Glen Ballard, who furnish a swift and pulsating Eurythmics-style score for the trim script provided by Bruce Joel Rubin, the film’s screenwriter, who faithfully tracks his story.

Their effective musical storytelling positions songs in appropriate plot points and packs several gleaming tunes, notably a rhapsodic “Here Right Now” for the lovers, an expansive “Suspend My Disbelief/I Had A Life” anthem for the first act finale and a rambunctious “I’m Outta Here” production number for the balky medium winningly portrayed here with infectious big mama gusto by newcomer Da’Vine Joy Randolph.

If the overall impression of the score resembles a film or music video soundtrack more than a Broadway musical that is because Christopher Nightingale’s densely-layered arrangements and orchestrations are so metallic and overblown. Sci-fi effects and ghostly echoes filter through Bobby Aitken’s sound design, which blasts the sound from every direction in the auditorium.