Jeri Tidwell Photography
Before I get into this review, let me implore you to support your local arts organizations, and the arts in general. On the day I saw this show, it was announced that Phantom of the Opera was closing on Broadway after 35 years, which was shocking news. If a long-running Broadway favorite has to pack it in because of low attendance, think of what local production companies are facing. The arts needs patrons to survive. Be those patrons and support your local arts organizations.
By this point in time, if you’re of a certain age you are aware of the 1990 movie Ghost, with Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore. The iconic pottery scene has been spoofed many times over the years, and it’s hard not to hear the classic ‘Unchained Melody’ without thinking of the movie. The movie became a cultural phenomenon, and as these things go, someone had the idea to transfer the film to the stage with the addition of songs to forward the story. The show opened in London’s West End in 2011, and a Broadway production began in April 2012. The Broadway show did not catch fire like the movie did, closing after just 136 performances but it did earn three Tony Award nominations. A North American tour was launched in 2013, which I had the opportunity to see when it came to Baltimore in 2014. My original thoughts were that the show was fine with a few nice tunes and a showstopping performance, but a lot of the real emotion the story should have carried was overshadowed by the production design, video projections and ghostly special effects. So when I saw that Toby’s Dinner Theatre was going to mount a production in its intimate in-the-round space, I was intrigued as to how they would pull it off. I had no doubt that they would though, because director Mark Minnick took a pop fizz show like Mamma Mia! and gave it some real depth. I knew he and his cast would find something to make the emotional moment of Ghost the Musical click with the audience.
If you don’t know the story, it centers around happy couple Sam Wheat (Patrick Gover) and Molly Jensen (MaryKate Brouillet) as they move into their new Brooklyn apartment with the help of their friend Carl (Justin Calhoun). Molly constantly tells Sam she loves him, but his constant response of ‘Ditto’ has her questioning his love for her. Just as she brings up the M-word (marriage), they are approached on the street by a robber who, during a scuffle with Sam, accidentally shoots him in front of Molly. Sam quickly learns that he’s stuck in some kind of purgatory or limbo, neither Heaven nor Hell, but all Sam wants it to be able to communicate with Molly. He pops in on a phony psychic named Oda Mae Brown (Ashley Johnson), who is quite surprised when she discovers she really can speak to the dead. But she wants no part of it. Sam convinces her to pay a visit to Molly and feeds her some information to prove he’s truly there. Molly slowly begins to believe Oda Mae, and Sam eventually encounters the man who killed him but he learns the shocking news that his death may not have been as accidental as it seemed. Unfortunately, Molly has also learned from the police that Oda Mae has a rap sheet as long as her arm, and feels that the woman has just been taking advantage of her. Sam needs to work quickly to convince Molly that he’s really there and that she’s in grave danger.
I don’t think I’ve seen the movie since the 1990s, so I am far enough removed from it to not really remember many of the details so I’m not focused on what they may have changed from the movie (and the two productions share the same writer, so that probably helps the screen-to-stage transition). I do remember the movie packing a huge emotional punch, and the cast did a great job of keeping viewers engaged in their stories. The stage show lacked a bit of that emotion and intimacy because you’re generally too far away from the actors to feel like you’re part of the story like you can with a movie when you are seeing them close up and larger than life. Ghost the Musical actually seems built for a smaller space like Toby’s DInner Theatre because you as an audience member are part of the story, and you can see and feel the emotions from the actors. The smaller stage also, as with Mamma Mia!, allows director Minnick to focus on the story, on the relationships, on the emotions, foregoing the flashy special effects, letting us be invested in Sam and Molly, and his casting choices are spot on.
Jeri Tidwell Photography
Patrick Gover returns to Toby’s as Sam. Gover is terrific, even if he was giving me a little more Rocky Balboa than Patrick Swayze (but his last appearance at Toby’s was in Rocky so I can be forgiven for seeing and hearing some similarities). What counts though is that he makes us believe in his relationship with Molly, and we feel his struggles and frustrations to be heard, his desperation to save Molly’s life, his satisfaction when he finally learns that he can affect physical objects in the world of the living. He’s also easy on the eyes and has a terrific voice, so you can’t help but root for the guy. He is matched in his performance by Toby’s regular, the lovely and extremely talented MaryKate Brouillet, who also allows us to feel all of her emotions from trying to get Sam to say those ‘three little words’, to experiencing his death and trying to grasp if what Oda Mae is telling her is the truth. She breaks our hearts as she pines for Sam, and we want to yell at her to see the danger that’s right in her living room (on several occasions). She pours her heart into Molly’s songs and we feel it in ours. Without overt spoilers, Justin Calhoun gives a multi-faceted performance as Carl, and he has a voice that I always enjoy hearing on that stage. Ryan Sellers, in his second Toby’s show, is the perfect bad guy you want to boo and hiss (which I did at intermission when he brought some beverages to the table) and he has an amazing moment late in the show. The role of the Subway Ghost is normally played by Taylor Witt, but for our performance Brian Dauglash took on the role and he brought a level of intensity to it that was frightening. It was interesting to see him segue from that role to a corporate suit guy in the ensemble to a beach party guy and back again to the ghost. Quite an impressive feat. Toby’s regular DeCarlo Raspberry also has a wonderful moment as he welcomes Sam to his new existence.
Of course the showstopping role in both the movie and the stage show is psychic Oda Mae Brown. Whoopi Goldberg took that part all the way to Oscar gold, and original stage Oda Mae, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, was the only cast member to score a Tony nomination. The role is meant to be broad and comedic, and it certainly comes with a lot of pressure to deliver what audiences familiar with Ghost have come to expect. Ashley Johnson does not disappoint, and in fact I think she surpasses those other performances because while she is broadly comic when she needs to be, she’s not too over-the-top. She is very funny when she needs to be but she also brings some real emotion to the character as well, especially when she is first trying to convince Molly that Sam is there, and later when she allows Sam to ‘inhabit’ her body so Molly can feel his touch one last time. By the end, with her, Gover’s and Brouillet’s performances in the final scene and Minnick’s expert direction … well, as I told the director it must have gotten awfully hot in the theatre because my eyeballs started sweating. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. (Yeah, you might want to keep a napkin or tissue handy when your eyeballs start sweating too.) But that may make Ghost the Musical a hard sell to those who just want fun, vibrant musicals full of big production numbers and catchy tunes. It is fun, it is engrossing, the songs are more like vocalizations of dialogue rather than anything you’ll hum on the way out … which will be difficult with the lump it will leave in your throat. But that shouldn’t put you off from seeing the show. Minnick and his cast and crew have taken a big, somewhat over-produced Broadway musical and stripped it down to something much more intimate and emotional, with a couple of nifty ‘how did they do that’ moments. That should be more than enough reason to see Ghost the Musical at Toby’s Dinner Theatre.
And if the show isn’t enough, there is also the food, which is always very delicious and this time was no exception. The menu includes the Salad Bar, side dishes (broccoli, braised cabbage, ratatouille, roasted potatoes, the signature Spinach Phunque), Spaghetti Pomodoro, Meatballs Marinara, Roasted Italian Chicken, Baked Tilapia, the carving board of beef, ham and turkey, desserts, the ice cream bar, and the signature show drink, The Ditto, a frozen fruity concoction, topped with whipped cream and some Boo-Berry cereal, also available in an ‘adult’ version with a splash of alcohol. And you get to keep the souvenir glass! So come out to Toby’s to see a terrific show and enjoy a delicious meal, and show your support for the arts.
Please note: This musical contains strong language that may not be suitable for younger audience members.
Ghost the Musical runs about 2 hours and 30 minutes with one 15 minute intermission. The show runs through November 6. Toby’s next production is a musical adaptation of the classic holiday film It’s a Wonderful Life (November 11-January 15).
Toby’s Dinner Theatre
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