Review: FOOTLOOSE THE MUSICAL at Stadthalle Wien

Remember those days when dancing in Bomont was prohibited, and we watched the young Kevin Bacon as Ren McCormack, giving it all for the sake of dancing and all the unfortunate souls in this prim little town. Of course, there wasn't much dancing in the movie, but it was exhilarating when they burst into it.

The tour of the Musical Version hits the road and stops in Vienna and other major capitals in Austria. Footloose never claimed to be a sincere show, it's more like an 80's kind of High School Musical.
You will surely get famous music numbers like the Main Title Footloose or Holding Out For A Hero in its original language. Others, sad to say, got lost in the German translation; if you can't get it right, leave it in its original way.

Of course, there is less than expected dancing in the show, but some movements are happening. Timo Radünz (Choreography) tried to bring something fresh to the show, at least, he tried. Apart from what might be called "dancing," we witnessed some rather unusual choices from the director, Martin Schmitt; it's the small pieces, the body language when Raphael Groß (Ren McCormack) is pouring out his heart in front of Reverend Shaw Moore (an excellent Ethan Freeman) just to name one. Fix the small ones, and you might create a bigger picture. Let them hang loose, and everything will fall apart.

FOOTLOOSE The Musical could be an entertaining evening; it could. I still remember the show directed/choreographed by Kim Duddy back in the days in Klagenfurt; powerful, energetic, and with a lot of heart, exactly how it's supposed to be, something the tour is sadly missing.
Kerstin Ibald (Vi Moore) and Ethan Freeman have shown what it needs to fill a character with more than just saying your lines to create something emotional. The two of them know how to catch their audience, something aspiring artists can and should learn from them.
FOOTLOOSE The Tour has found its hero(es), but not in Ren McCormack, rather than in Kerstin Ibald and Ethan Freeman. So, everybody cut loose- Footloose.

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