Review: Cast and crew cut loose with Stage West's high-energy version of Footloose

Calgary Herald

01-05-2025

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The movie Footloose may be 40 years old, but its characters and themes are as relevant and relatable as they were four decades ago. Stage West has given a stage version of Footloose a high-energy production highlighting the story's strengths and appeal.
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Ren McCormack, a Chicago teenager who works in a dance club, is forced to move to the small town of Bomont when his father abandons them. He discovers that the town has banned dancing and clubs because of an accident that claimed the lives of four teenagers five years earlier. Ren's adversary is Reverend Shaw Moore, who rules the town from his pulpit, and it quickly becomes Ren's goal to bring dancing back to Bomont.
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The film version of Footloose received two Oscar nominations in 1985 for best song including the title song, and Let's Hear it for the Boy, both of which are in the stage musical as well as Almost Paradise, Holding Out for a Hero, I'm Free, Heaven Help Me and The Girl Gets Around. The stage musical also includes songs like Learning to be Silent, Mama Says, Dancing is not a Crime, and Can You Find it in Your Heart, which couldn't be more different from the pop songs from the film, but they do help advance the plot and explain what the characters are feeling.
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Ariel, the Reverend's daughter, makes a play for Ren because she thinks it will anger her father, but eventually she sees that they have a great deal in common, and that there is genuine attraction, as they reveal in their big duet Almost Paradise.
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As Ren, Sam Boucher proves to be the triple-threat this role demands. He wisely shows Ren's insecurities as well as his bravura so as not to alienate the audience, and can give each of his songs the gusto they demand and boy, can the man move. It's as if there isn't a bone in his body.
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Paige Foskett shows a real duality that makes her Ariel so alluring. She is a completely different person at home than she is in public. She desperately wants to revive the relationship she once had with her father, but he only sees her rebellious side and holds it against her.
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Footloose is definitely a child of the '80s, so there is a vein of misogyny that pervades the story: Ren's mother is abandoned by her husband, the Reverend's wife makes it clear she knows her place, and Ariel accepts the abuse her boyfriend Chuck Cranston doles out. They even have the song Learning to be Silent to highlight their plights.
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The supporting cast in Footloose is excellent. Ben Skipper and Tayo Gbalajobi as Ren and Ariel's odd-couple friends, Willard and Rusty, are pure dynamite. The audience cheers when Skipper's Willard finally learns to dance, showing they've bought into the character and not the actor. Alex Fellowes Smith doesn't make Cranston a dolt. He's genuinely scary, and that's not easy to achieve in a musical.