By Tanya Batson-Savage, Staff Reporter
Members of the ice-skating ensemble that performed at 'Broadway on Ice', which was staged at the Ward Theatre, downtown Kingston, on the weekend. - Winston Sill/Freelance Photographer
'BROADWAY ON Ice', staged at the Ward Theatre last weekend, was tagged 'the most spectacular show on ice you will ever see!' In a manner of speaking, the show lived up to that promise. It was not, however, because it was a spectacular show, but simply because with our proximity to the Tropic of Cancer, it is probably the only ice show Jamaica will see and thus it wins by default.
As such, if one had gone in with overly high expectations of being dazzled by the wonder of a combination of ice-skating and musicals from Broadway, the show may have been particularly disappointing. Its greatest advantage was the novelty of the experience.
FUND-RAISER
The show was put on by the Ward Theatre Foundation in an attempt to raise funds to restore the Ward to its former prominence. The year 2003 has been dubbed the 'Year of the Ward', and 'Broadway on Ice' was the first of a series of fund-raising events.
'Broadway on Ice' opened on Friday with a full house in anticipatory attendance. Unfortunately, due to a snag in transportation, the show started half-an-hour later than the billed 7:00 p.m. start. One of the problems which supposedly hinders attendance for performances at the Ward is the lack of transportation. As such, for 'Broadway on Ice', shuttle buses were arranged. Once the show got under way, however, it all flowed smoothly.
The show was a combination of choreography to some of the most popular songs on and off Broadway. There were segments from Top Hat, Grease and Copacabana. The skating was also interspersed with performances by Las Vegas singer René Casey and juggler Tommy Curtin.
GREAT JUGGLING
Interestingly, the juggling was often far more entertaining than the skating. This was in large part because the ensemble's pieces were not particularly imaginative
and their skating was consistently unimpressive. The headliners for the evening, however, Christopher Hendricks, Nardezha Kovalev-skaya, Christine Hackworth, Robb Ness and Laurie Welch Heath were more interesting and helped to save the night with impressive spins and lifts.
The evening began with selections from the popular musical Top Hat, with skating by the ensemble. Skating to the Putting On The Ritz, the only thing which was in the vicinity of 'ritzy' about the rendition was the amazing number of sequins in the costume.
LACKLUSTRE
It was a somewhat lacklustre beginning to the evening, especially since the members of the ensemble did not all seem to be able to do the high kick, the most exciting part of a chorus line, all at the same time. It was the first sign of flaws in the choreography.
Things started to look up, however, with the appearance of Nardezha Kovalevskaya in her first solo for the evening. In fact, the most interesting parts of the skating came in the solos and duets. Christian Hendricks, a United States national champion, continually dazzled the audience with his spins. Hendricks' first solo was to If You Could See Me Now, which contained a dizzying number of turns.
SKATING PROCESS
Hendricks would later up the ante when he returned for his second solo to This Is The Moment in which he included back flips. Hendricks' skating prowess was also complemented by his dramatic ability.
The fact that the soundtrack was good was a great plus for the event since it gave some excitement to moments of weak skating. One such time was during the performance of the group's rendition of Grease, which ended the first half of the performance. The skaters performed three of the most famous songs from the extremely successful musical.
The segment began with Summer Love followed by Grease Lightning and Hand Jive. Of the three, Hand Jive was the most interestingly performed, though the entire segment lacked the passion, magic and drama that has made Grease the international phenomenon that it now is.
