By BRUCE DENNILL
Diary Of A Wimpy Kid: The Musical / Directed by Vicky Friedman / Theatre On The Square, Sandton, Johannesburg
Based on stories written by Jeff Kinney in a series of novels that has sold over 250 million copies, this children’s musical features a cast of 34 – Sarah Richard and Sechaba Ramphele as all the adult characters (parents and teachers) and two separate casts of 16 kids each that share the performance roster.
Chief wrangler/director Vicky Friedman ensures that the many, many individual marks are hit, and also that, if there is any uncertainty that there is no panicking by the young performers, giving the story a smooth flow and meaning that nobody tramples on anyone else’s cues.
Kevin Del Aguila’s script connects a number of stories from the books and Michael Mahler and Alan Schmukler’s music and lyrics both expand on that writing and keep the pace of the piece at a level you need to have a kid’s energy to keep up with! Several musical motifs are repeated regularly, helping them to stick in the audience’s collective mind and to support some of the major themes – craving popularity; exploring what friendship really means and more.
The ‘wimpy kid’ of the title is named Greg Heffley and it’s a huge role for a performer of any age, with Greg on stage more or less every minute of the show and involved in most of the music as well. In the performance under review, the charismatic Jayden Fittinghoff does a brilliant job, maintaining considerable intensity and as he manages and imposing vocal range needed and practiced comic timing. Other performers who make a major impact are Tatum Murray-Smith as Greg’s all-dancing, all-singing classroom nemesis Patty and Emily Madison Wierenga, an excellent dancer, as fellow class member Pauline.
A number of the songs – The Cheese Touch, Joshie Says and Animal Heart – tap into the sweet, willful daftness of Kinney’s tales, with the cast really investing in the physical actions that make the jokes involved more funny. The Middle Of It All – a song describing the place in the popularity ladder that Greg doesn’t want to be – is the standout composition from the score, which is confirmed by the number of people singing it in the foyer of the theatre after the show.
Diary Of A Wimpy Kid, given the tempo of the action and the number of child actors involved in often quite complex choreography and the like, is a challenging piece for inexperienced performers. This ambition also makes the play a valuable testing ground, with its young stars sure to be able to build on their the knowledge and proficiency gained here.
