BIG

BIG – A GREAT MUSICAL FOR THE 74TH THEATRE SEASON AT BRNO CITY THEATRE

Spectators familiar with the Brno musical scene have long been used to the fact that the dramaturgical team at Brno Musical Theatre often presents Czech premieres of world-famous musicals. And now they’ve got lucky once again. The theatre version of BIG, an American film starring Tom Hanks in the main role, had its premiere on Broadway in 1996 and was nominated for five Tony Awards. (…) BIG is a musical fairy-tale about a fulfilled wish. (… ) The thirteen-year-old boy Josh Baskin finds a machine at a fairground which is said to fulfil every wish, and throws in a coin. Then, a miracle happens. He goes to bed as a teenager but wakes up in the morning as an adult man who has to face all the problems this change brings. (…) The director, Petr Gazdík, produced the whole musical with two alternate sets of actors. He had a lot of people to choose from as this ensemble is full of musical personalities. Some of the roles offer the opportunity for full involvement, such as Susan Lawrence (Viktória Matušovová), who is passionate and affectionate but sometimes indecisive, and the adult version of Josh, who gave actor Jonáš Florián a lot of chances to create comedy from being a child in an adult’s body, and the actor and director made full use of this. Jan Mazák clearly enjoyed himself as the toy company owner too, and the scene which saw him stomping on the large keys of a keyboard together with Jonáš Florián was an excellent rhythmic number. Another actor given plenty of space was Robert Jícha as Paul Seymour, one of the “adults”, who had a bunch of work and love-related problems. The group of singing and dancing children is a chapter in itself. (…) The nearly thirty kids, carefully selected at auditions, have learned a lot. It must have been hard work getting them to the stage when they could dance with such lightness and sing with such purity. We can see the same dynamism in the dance performances of the adult members of the company too, and there were around twenty of them. (…) Thanks to Carli Rebecca Jefferson´s witty choreography, their contribution was full of energy. The cherry on top was the music, modern yet also likeable, played under the sensitive leadership of conductor Dan Kalousek. (…) BIG is another show which will be hopelessly sold out for a long time.

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