There is. And I saw it last night.
So, I decided to volunteer as an usher at my school's musical (the name of the school will be anonymous) which is usually pretty good cuz we (in other words) mooch off the county's awesome drama kids and horde them in our school. This year's musical (which is kind of obscure...i hope there's some other high school currently performing this musical also so I don't give away what school I'm from) is basically the stories of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, and Noah's Ark in one (I daresay LONG) musical. Surprisingly i liked the musical a lot, despite its superficial religious pretense that actually does not play a big part in the musical. It doesn't really focus on religion though (which made it less awkward for me, currently teetering between agnostic and apathetic) but on family (each story has to HAVE a father as some source of conflict...sometimes even two. As in different generations though I do support gay marriage).
However, this is not a review of a high school musical. Local papers can do that. Apparently the costume designers decided it would be interesting or maybe some sort of 'avant-garde' to have all (if not most) of the costumes to be based on japanese street fashion. I found this out before the actual performances through a friend's tumblr, which intrigued me. I had already wikipedia-ed the musical (because I thought I would be able to play bass clarinet for pit orchestra but it turned out that there was only one bass clarinet song...) and was not sure how it would work (my friend did have mixed-but-mostly-negative reviews about this musical's costumes) so I decided to see the musical this year (well I volunteered as an usher so I could go see the musical for free! no way I'm paying 12 buckaroos).
Same as my friend, I have mixed reviews of the costumes too. I mean I liked some individual outfits (i.e. my friend had a really cool poncho and skirt combo thing...) but there was a lot of stereotyped 'japanese street style' outfits. As in outrageous beyond belief. Seriously. I feel like there's an air around the whole 'Japanese street' craze which got mistranslated as 'make the most bizarre and completely ridiculous outfits ever'. As in this:
i'm sorry to say but I saw some costumes with way too much neons, patterns, temp-airsprayed-dyed hair, primary colored knee high socks etc. AKA TRYING TOO HARD. LIKE THE PICTURE ABOVE. Some of the costume just look like those so-called 'creative' costumes you see on halloween (e.g. one girl just wore suspender shorts with knee high socks...yeah...reminds me of any suburban girl's halloween nerd costume). And some didn't make sense (two girls were wearing football should pads and armor. You know what I mean. I still don't understand what they were supposed to be...) And, I'm sorry, some of the outfits looked downright trashy, like they wanted to go edgy or funky or something but looked more like strippers-on-their-day-off. Or teenage girls' slutty Halloween costumes. Ew!
Enough with the bashing though because there were some good parts. My problem is mainly with some of the chorus' costumes. Somehow costume design realized that it would be inappropriate to have Eve or Yonah dressed up as a hot neon mess and subdued the costumes for the main cast a little (aka A LOT!). Or that Japanese street fashion didn't have to be loud but subtle yet interesting. Like this:
Or this:
or this:
or even this:
(c) dropsnap.jp. go check it out :D
Nothing like that Halloween costume right? RIGHT? Well anyhow, I liked how the main cast had a more subtle, earthy, vagabond-like appearance than the Satan-worshiper looking, slutty Gwen Stefani Harajuku lovers (bleh!) replicating, a somewhat desperate at trying to look 'interesting' appearance that a large amount of the chorus members take on. There were a lot of dull-colored, subtle prints and patterns (i.e. strips and plaid) and tribal prints that worked. Surprisingly there was a lot of interesting shapes (especially Mama Noah's dress) and interesting use of layering (example: Noah's seemingly obnoxious pink pants and mostly tribal pattern under a white shawl with subtle and pastel stripes that gave off a Peruvian tribesman living in the Andes feel).
And the best of all? FATHER'S! So basically the actor playing father (aka God...ironic no?) dons in all pepto bismol pink: suit, shirt, suspender, shoes...ALL OF IT! At first it makes you queasy looking at the outfit groping around in the theater for the gastro-problems remedy that the actor somewhat resembles. But as your eyes adjust to the blinding pink you realize "HOLY CRAP! IT ACTUALLY LOOKS PRETTY COOL!" Think of its impact the same as looking at some dapper looking guy with a tailored all-bright-white suit. Except the suit doesn't look like the stereotypically Halloween pimp costume kind of cheesy. But it's PINK! And then you realize the shoes! The shoes are amazing! So amazing that even with some sort of metallic pink glare the shine off of it doesn't even look feminine! Now that you mention it, the whole all pink thing didn't look feminine at all, it looked BOLD AND POWERFUL. LIKE A GOD. (note: that I'm worshiping the outfit and not the actor. Just making me self clear). I mean at first I did wonder if all white would actually be more impactful (y'know to symbolize father's power and whatnot) but sooner or later I finally convert to the power of PINK! *two thumbs up*
There...after long process of actually typing out this post (started typing this on Sunday...it's Wednesday now) I finally gave my review. In short? Chorus: pretty iffy. Main cast: pretty good. Father: pretty...no definitely YES!
I'm sorry for the lack of pictures but I'm pretty sure that the actors wouldn't want pictures of them on some anonymous blog. And I wasn't even part of the productions...So maybe I'll draw some crude, primitive sketches of my favorite costumes. Yeah. Ho ho ho
~Zeeta