Da Boyz
Theatre Royal Stratford East, Spring 2003

Isn't it always like that? You wait your entire life for a rap version of Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors (the one about the two sets of twins constantly mistaken for each other), and then two come along in the same week. You'll find our review of The Bomb-itty of Errors in the Musicals section. This fringe production has a lot of attractive youthful energy to it, but I fear it is significantly the weaker of the two.

The Theatre Royal has long had the mission of serving its East London community first and traditional theatregoers second. Fifty years ago that meant the left-wing, largely Jewish population reflected in the work of the legendary Joan Littlewood and her Theatre Workshop. As the economics and ethnic makeup of the area have changed over the decades, so has the theatre's face, and now it is as much a community centre and educational outreach organisation as a producing theatre.

Da Boyz actually grew out of the work of its youth theatre program, and several members of the young Afro-Caribbean cast are making their professional debuts here. There's no question that this gives the show an immediacy and authenticity that go a long way towards outweighing its lack of polish. But even on its own terms, there are too many disappointments for it to be wholly successful.

Da Boyz is actually an adaptation of the Rodgers and Hart musical The Boys from Syracuse, the songs remixed into contemporary styles (with the blessing of the Richard Rodgers office) and the plot updated by DJ Excalibah, MC Skolla and ULTZ (as you'll see, many involved in the show use street names).

I am far from a purist, and would have been happy to hear exciting new versions of such standards as Falling In Love With Love and This Can't Be Love. But the updatings turn out to be rather tame - generally jazz arrangements of the sort that, say, Cleo Laine might sing, but over a heavy bass beat, and with rap interludes in the style of some contemporary pop records. On the other hand some of the songs, like Ladies Of The Evening, are deconstructed to the point of being barely recognisable, essentially original raps on vaguely similar subjects.

As the visiting twin, Kyza has some nice comic timing and the rubber face of a young Lenny Henry, while Kat and Darren Hart have fun with the slapstick of the twin servants. Lorna Brown and Vanya Taylor belt out the show's best songs with impressive energy.

Perhaps to accommodate the relative inexperience of the performers, director ULTZ has moved all the plot and dialogue scenes offstage, projecting video tapes onto large screens and leaving the stage exclusively for musical numbers. Choreography by Steady has the kids doing the kind of break dance moves street dancers were doing 20 years ago. And the whole thing is structured loosely enough that it can stop dead in the middle for a Guest Star turn by a locally popular rapper doing his own material.

To generate some of the excitement of a dance club, the seats in the stalls have been removed, allowing the younger members of the audience to stand and dance along if they like. That a boring old white man like me was unmoved by the show may be less significant than the fact that the teenagers and young people around me stood rather impassively through most of it.

Gerald Berkowitz

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Review - Da Boyz - Stratford East 2003