Review: The Lightning Thief
– 2 min read
What began as a bedtime story for his son by Rick Riordan, the Percy Jackson sequence of fantasy novels sold 180 million copies and so it was inevitable it would become a stage musical.
Writers Joe Tracz (book) and Rob Rokicki (music and lyrics), clearly owe a debt of gratitude to a host of other sources - Clash Of The Titans, Rent, Harry Potter, Hadestown and Dear Evan Hansen all spring to mind - even maybe Hamlet!
This is the tale of an angst-ridden teenage boy, who never knew his father and wants to know why. Turns out P is a half-blood - half human and half God, and his father was Poseidon, God of the seas.
Now you might find it handy to know your Kronos from your Zeus; your Athena from your Aphrodite. This show goes into intricate details about the power and weaknesses of the Ancient Greek Gods. The young audience, steeped in the books of course, have no such problems.
There’s enough energy in this fast-paced musical to light and heat all the homes in Brighton. Vasco Emauz leads from the front with his pained progress in life. His anguish is palpable and it’s a strong vocal performance.
Lots of the company double or triple up and there are great cameos from Niall Sheehy as a wheelchair-bound college principal, a half-man half-horse centaur, super camp hippy Hades, God of the underworld, and a beach bum Poseidon in Hawaiian shirt and dad bod physique. He doesn’t diaapppoint.
My other two favourites were Simone Robinson, as Percy’s doomed mother, but she excels as a grizzly Medusa - with a head full of wriggling snakes, and as a Tina Turner lift attendant taking our hero down to the underworld.
But I particularly like Cahir O’Neill’s nuanced performance as Grover, Percy’s best friend and protector, who turns out to be a satyr: half-boy half-goat, whose woolly leggings are a sight. He has the closest song to a ballad about a dead friend - The Tree On The Hill. It’s spellbinding so to speak.
Second friend of Percy is Annabeth, a hung-up, angry girl seeking her own answers to the meaning of life. You would think she would become the love interest but not a bit of it, so Kayna Montecillo’s performance is almost redundant, but she tags along as Percy and Grover head to LA where the underworld resides below a record shop.
This is a hero's quest story, with pretensions to be about a younger generation’s loss of faith and purpose, but hoping to make the world better. To my mind its energy is wasted in that it doesn’t follow through on its potential and the '90s sound of its music fails to be varied enough or engaging.
What is brilliant is the set design by Ryan Dawson Laight - solid tunnel linings which the cast can climb give an eerie, claustrophobic feeling of being underground. And the young audience clearly identified with Emauz’s strong characterisation.
The Lightning Thief is at Theatre Royal Brighton until Saturday, 4 October.
