By Kate Hawthorne, Staff Editor
For a small off-Broadway musical, “The Lightning Thief” has been going surprisingly strong. The musical was first introduced in 2014 and went on a national tour, before being re-written and produced in spring of 2017 to much acclaim. The 2017 adaptation was nominated for three Drama Desk awards and one Theatre Fans’ Choice award. The production announced in 2018 that it would be returning for a national tour beginning in January 2019, including a weekend at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia.
Based on the award-winning Rick Riordan novel that sparked the “Percy Jackson” phenomenon, the musical adapts the original plot line beautifully to the stage, and into a musical format, while staying fairly true to the original novel. With a minimalist set of scaffolding and graffitied Grecian columns, the small seven person cast brings the story to life.
Surprisingly, Chris McCarrell who played Percy Jackson was the actor that I felt was the most inconsistent in his embodiment of his role. His performance was by no means poor, the other actors just blew me away. Kristin Stokes played Annabeth Chase and brought her character to life with ambition, strength, a beautiful voice, and amazing lyrics. Although the other actors had comparatively secondary roles, they were the most shocking aspect of the entire production. Each actor, besides McCarrell and Stokes, played at least two roles, with four of the five playing more than three.
The actors differentiated between each character with vocal and characteristic idiosyncrasies that actually forced me to pause for a minute to ensure that it was actually the same actor playing the role. Ryan Knowles who played Chiron, Poseidon, and others and Jorrel Javier who played Grover Underwood and Dionysus, especially reinforced this, changing movement, accents, and facial expressions so that each character was a separate entity.
In an approximately three-hour long performance, the actors were able to coherently convey an action packed story with a gamut of emotion, while keeping the atmosphere relatively light and easy whenever it got too tense. Standout lines include a stoned Poseidon announcing, “It’s a seashell,” and “One does not simply walk out of the Underworld,” from a gold-suit wearing, music producer version of Hades, both played by Knowles.
With toilet paper rolls attached to air-blowers depicting water, confetti cannons shot in red light depicting fire, and prosthetic wings, goat legs, and a bull head and arms, what was obviously a low-budget production was able to achieve impressive stage presence.
The changes to the actual plotline are minimal and mostly related to details and backstory. The one big change that made the entire performance more compelling revolved around James Hayden Rodriguez in his role as Luke Castellan. In the performance, Rodriguez takes on an active big brother to McCarrell, far more than in the novels. He brings him into the fold and serves as his sounding board, making the story all the more enthralling and rollercoaster-like. Rodriguez has a presence onstage that radiates charisma, and was the individual who really pulled the whole show together.
The soundtrack was equally amazing as the production. Each song incorporated aspects of the original story, and most dabbled in different genres of music, with rock-esque music as the predominant style. In performance, the music is exceedingly loud, almost as if one is attending a rock concert, but the lyrics are powerful and speak to experiences beyond a performance about gods, monsters, and quests.
If you can see the performance before the national tour ends in mid-July, I highly recommend it, as long as you are aware beforehand of the loud music and frequent strobe light usage. It earns the many four-star reviews it got on Broadway, including Time Out New York’s memorable “Worthy of the Gods!” At the very least, the soundtrack is worth listening to and gives you a glimpse into how a small off-Broadway musical has become a national phenomenon.
Photo credit: Kate Hawthorne
