Review: The SpongeBob SquarePants musical is more than nautical nonsense
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When I was a kid, I would sit agape in front of SpongeBob SquarePants after school everyday, a small bag of sour cream and chive-flavoured chips in one hand and the VCR remote in the other. With the arrival of each ad break, I'd diligently hit pause on the first frame, determined to craft the perfect ad-free omnibus tape to enjoy again and again and again. I felt as absorbent and porous as the titular sponge himself, wanting to soak up every moment of the subversive, optimistic, anarchic and sometimes demented undersea shenanigans of Bikini Bottom.
Creator Stephen Hillenburger was a failed marine biologist, who first swapped the scuba mask for a pencil on the equally surreal 90s Nickelodeon cartoon Rocko's Modern Life. Soon he started pitching a cartoon about a wide-eyed 'spongeboy' who loved his job and his friends, and was surrounded by all manner of characters including a dim-witted bestie (Patrick Star) and a perpetually aggrieved neighbour (Squidward Tentacles). In 1999, SpongeBob wandered onto our screens in his shiny black shoes and notably square pants, and basically never left.
While he still ropes in kids with his colourful world and silly faces, there's also plenty of adults out there who still believe in the power of the sponge. 'I think SpongeBob SquarePants is better than The Simpsons,' David Correos recalled during his My Life in TV interview last year. 'Spongebob is way deeper and way more intellectual.' Correos isn't alone in this thinking – much has been written about the show's postmodern ethos, fascinating patterns of masculinity, deeply Marxist ideas and construction of The American Dream. It's also just really funny, too.
With all this in mind, I toddled along to Ōtautahi's Court Theatre to see SpongeBob SquarePants: The Musical live on stage this week. Directed by Dan Bain, it was a kaleidoscopic trip, centred around the quest of 'a simple sponge' to stop a deadly volcano from destroying Bikini Bottom. The rich folk (Mr Krabs) capitalise on the chaos, the tyrants (Plankton) use it as an opportunity to seize control, the government flails around in incompetence and the media turns the whole thing into sensationalist frenzy. Sound familiar?
Meanwhile, Sandy Cheeks (Libby McMahon) turns to science, SpongeBob (Cole Moffatt) stays eternally optimistic, and Patrick (Bill Cross) becomes a dim-witted distraction for those desperate for a saviour (reminiscent of Katy Perry saving the world by going to space). All of this is couched with staggering musical numbers, impressive costuming (Squidward's legs were a highlight) and classic gags ('Is that something we should worry about?' a concerned citizen asks. 'Breaking news: that is something we should worry about' the newsreader bellows.)
Other highlights of the show included the pipes on Mr Krabs' daughter Pearl (Olivia Skelton) in her own 'Defying Gravity' moment, and a couple of scene-stealing cameos from kids in the chorus line. I couldn't help but feel envious of the excited little kids in the crowd being exposed to such big, bold themes and glittering production design before they've even got all their damn teeth. My earliest theatre experience was a weird old fella doing Punch and Judy in the chilly school hall, now it's all An Evening With Peppa Pig and Bluey doing arena spectaculars.
Then again, these big, bold stories are precisely what kids – and, more crucially, adults – need to see right now. The youth edition covered a lot of ground in its truncated 60 minute runtime, sneaking complex ideas about capitalism, community and climate change under a dazzling spectacle of bubbles, fairy lights, sequins and imagination. Not bad for a simple sea sponge.
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