Ghost at HCT

I am not a fan of the current trend on Broadway of turning popular movies into stage musicals; however, Hale Centre Theatre seems very fond of producing them (9 to 5,  Catch Me If You Can, Big, The Wedding Singer, and Footloose are a few that come to mind).  I almost always attend these shows because I am a fan of the original movie but, with the exception of Catch Me If You Can, I am usually disappointed.  That is definitely the case with HCT's latest offering, Ghost, which I saw last night.  It tells the well-known love story of Sam Wheat (Derek Smith), who is murdered in a robbery gone wrong, and Molly Jensen (Bre Welch), the woman he loves and watches over.  Both of these lead actors are incredibly talented, but I feel that they were miscast.  The songs have a pop feel to them and their voices were much too controlled and their enunciation was too perfect for that style of singing.  I kept wanting them to let loose and sing the blues. Then again, maybe their lackluster performances should be blamed on the material.  In my opinion, none of the songs are even remotely memorable.  It is as if full pages of dialogue from the screenplay were simply put to the accompaniment of music.   So contrived.  The only song I enjoyed was "Unchained Melody" but I thought it was completely overused. There wasn't much chemistry between the two leads (this could be due to the fact that, like the last show I saw, the actors were a mix of the MWF and THS casts).   In the famous pottery wheel scene, Welch seemed more focused on making the perfect pot rather than responding to the caresses of her lover.  All of my attention was focused on the pot, as well, because there wasn't much else going on, especially when compared to that particular scene in the movie.  I did enjoy McKenna K. Jensen's performance as Oda Mae Brown and I thought the special effects were incredible, especially the scenes on the subway. However, the set design was a rare miss for Kacey Udy.  Much of the action takes place on a large platform above the stage, which is cool, but I couldn't really see anything from where I was sitting and that was definitely irritating. There was a piano, cello, and violin trio playing on other platforms which were lowered from the ceiling at various times but I didn't really understand the significance. Again, it was cool, but it didn't contribute to the story in any way.  Bottom line: give this one a miss. Find your old VHS copy of the movie and watch it instead.