It’s not difficult to see why Nikolai Foster has chosen A Chorus Line as Curve’s first post-Covid Christmas show. Set in a rehearsal room, peopled by dancers nervously attending the final audition to become part of the chorus for a Broadway show, the 1975 musical has no flashy costumes, no stunning sets, no standout solo parts. Instead, it offers numerous characters, speaking, singing and dancing the often-harsh realities of their personal and professional lives (based on true stories told by dancers and recorded by Michael Bennett, who conceived, directed and choreographed the original production). Its continual focus-switching, from collective to individual experience, from gritty endurance to exuberant celebration, speaks powerfully to our pandemic-troubled times.
Staging and design add impact to the dramaturgical focus-shifts. Against the soaring black walls of Grace Smart’s vast-seeming set, individuals appear small and vulnerable, their bright clothes an emblem of hope against darkness (Edd Lindley’s costumes). At times, individuals dominate the setting – faces, projected in closeup on to the back wall. Even here, though, the dancers are subject to manipulation – the hands holding the camera belong to Zach (Adam Cooper), director of the show, sternly making his selection, or to Larry (Taylor Walker), his impatient assistant.
The slight weaknesses of the production show up in an extended exchange between Zach and Cassie (Carly Mercedes Dyer), his former lover, who asserts her right to retreat from the limelight into a chorus of people who are “all wonderful”. Dyer’s performance beautifully balances assurance against self-doubt, but Ellen Kane’s choreography, elsewhere so dazzling, here seems less assured in its relation to the soul-shaking live music (orchestrated by David Shrubsole), while Cooper’s attitude tends to a coolness that smothers a nascent emotional charge.
For the closing number, Howard Hudson’s lighting rig takes on a life of its own, dancing above the high-kicking chorus – identical in gold outfits, but each now unique, to our eyes, and all wonderful.
A Chorus Line is at Curve, Leicester, until 31 December
