![](https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/2926_1502094726.jpg)
Show: Rock of Ages: High School Edition
Society: Edinburgh Festival Fringe
Venue: SpaceTriplex (Venue 38)
Credits: Book by Chris D'ArienzoArrangements and Orchestration by Ethan Pop
Type: Sardines
Author: Chris Abbott
Performance Date: 06/08/2017
Rock of Ages: High School Edition
Chris Abbott | 07 Aug 2017 09:12am
One of the highlights of my visit to Edinburgh in 2015 was an inventive and beautifully produced musical about a spelling bee. The show is not well-known in the UK but the combination of talented young performers and a challenging script resulted in musical theatre of a high standard. Beyond the Page, the theatre company from West Potomac High School in Virginia, USA are back again, filling a Fringe venue even on a Sunday morning, and still with the same high level of theatrical talent although this time working with a script that was challenging for all the wrong reasons.
To begin with the many positive features about the production, however: audiences are once again presented with a talented and well-trained group of young people who know how to communicate with an audience. Guided by Director and Choreographer Peelee Clark, this High School group perform at a level not often achieved by performers who are much older. In the main roles, Sam Davidson worked the audience well and sang impressively as Lonnie, and Tony Lemus and Adrianna DeLorenzo inhabited their roles fully, sometimes adding subtlety where it did not exist in the script.
I felt real sympathy for Doug Black, a skilful performer saddled with an appallingly stereotypical role, but he managed to rise above the material he was given, and worked well opposite a thoughtful performance by Valentina Selnick as his protesting friend. The production was at its best in the musical numbers, especially where the whole ensemble were involved, and when breaking the fourth wall, although this must surely have been the quietest glam rock musical seen at Edinburgh, and many of the numbers would have worked better at louder volume.
There were no weak links in the cast and all made the most of the parts they were given, with Lorna Ryan as Justice catching the eye and impressing with her vocals; and Josh Stein was impossible to miss either within the ensemble or as Ja’Keith – a totally committed performer. Another impressive set of performances then, but in a piece of theatre which is largely unintelligible to UK audiences, with all the (weak) jokes meaningless to audiences outside the US; it was good there were other wildly partisan young people from the States at this performance to break through the tumbleweed moments following yet another weak one-liner.
I recommend all lovers of musical theatre to include Beyond the Page in their schedule whenever the visit the Fringe, but I hope they will bring something more worthy of their talents next time. Although the professional production of the show did run for a couple of years in London, it attracted some of the worst critical response of any recent musical. More seriously, The Guardian remarked then on the “unvarying and unpleasant tone of careless sexualisation” of the original show and, even in the High School edition, this remains the show’s greatest failing despite the hard work of these talented young people.
- : admin
- : 06/08/2017