Lost in Dreamland
REVIEW: DREAMLAND
BY RYAN M. LUÉVANO
Another L.A. born musical has recently surfaced at the NoHo Arts Center for a brief weekend run. The musical, Dreamland by John Francis Smith (Emmy Award winner as head writer and co-executive producer of Young and the Restless) and his daughter Asia Ray Smith, tells the story of an aspiring young actress from Kansas who dreams for her big break in the television industry. This full-length showbiz musical boasts a nineteen-person cast and a program of nineteen songs by this first-time writing team, an ambitious undertaking even for seasoned creators. Given that these performances are a billed as ‘a staging of’, it’s clear that the writing team do not have a finished product and are looking to see their work up on its feet and for feedback from audiences—this is a good sign, because in Dreamland’s current state, serious revisions are necessary to bring this show up to par with the contemporary musical theatre expectations.
Alana Gospodnetich, left, and Asia Ray Smith. Photo Credit: Beatrice Victor.
What the marketing and synopsis fail to mention is that Dreamland is actually a close musical adaptation or at least bears heavy inspiration from The Wizard of Oz. From the title, to structure, character, and crystal balls references, to an ending that (spoiler alert) begrudgingly surprises the audience revealing everything we witnessed is only a bad dream by the main character. What the synopsis does mention is that Dreamland combines “a contemporary spin on the traditional style of Golden Age musical theatre with cutting satire of the television industry”. With this verbose statement that promises so many components, some are bound to fall short—and in this case many elements certainly do.
Alana Gospodnetich. Photo Credit: Beatrice Victor.
Set in the present, the story is better off removing many of the numbers reminiscent of the Golden Age. Songs like: “What I Want”, “The Show’s About Us”, “Crystal Ball”, and “Writing By Committee” among others, although charming, these only serve to take us out of the contemporary story and into overly nostalgic territory. The lyrics follow suit with predictable rhymes and idealistic couplets such as: “She wakes up around ten everyday/I fix her some café au lait.” [. . .]“She dresses French Country and smart/‘Cause we listen to Rodgers and Hart”.
The cast of Dreamland. Photo Credit: Beatrice Victor.
These excessively romantic moments further remove us from the story at hand and reduce these modern-day characters to dated stereotypical musical theater ones that you might find in Rodgers and Hart’s lesser known works like The Girl Friend (1926) or Peggy-Ann (1926). The book too is befuddled, not only with classic versus contemporary, but also with daytime soap opera writing verses compelling musical theater storytelling. In each case, choose contemporary and Dreamland becomes a completely different type of musical—one that takes the path of modern musical theater works seen on Broadway in the last decade.
The cast of Dreamland is brimming with talent and handles this new musical with ease. By far the strongest performance of the evening is Shelly (Alana Gospodnetich) who is the foil of Mary. Gospondnetich fully commits to her character in every action and song—she’s a larger than life brassy vixen and we love her in “You’ve Got To Be On the Bottom To Get To the Top”. Mary’s (Asia Ray Smith) performance is laudable, especially in her vocal moments (“What I Want” and “Dreamland”); however, overall her character becomes lackluster when paired up with the stronger female characters Shelly and Sierra (Adrieanne Perez) who ignite the stage with red-hot sassiness. Todd (Aaron Scheff) is charming and sincere, his sweet voice finally shines in “Need Her So” in Act Two.
Cast of Dreamland. Photo Credit: Beatrice Victor.
WHAT ABOUT THE MUSIC DIRECTOR?
Music directors Jake Anthony and Christian Regul have expertly prepared this cast in this new score—all the voices are crystal clear and crisp. Anthony leads the performance from the keyboard with Regul and guitarist Patrick Latella with drive and precision. These musicians prove that it’s possible for a three-piece band to carry a big show like this one.
With already ten years work put into creating Dreamland, the writers must reconsider many of the show’s defining aspects and go back to the drawing board in order to rescue the piece from it’s current passion project state—emphasize the contemporary, and biting satire, remove The Wizard of Oz element and the potential for a new exciting show is there.
