Dirty Dancing - The Classic Story On Stage has enjoyed the biggest box office advance for any show in West End history, largely because of the huge devotion of fans to the 1987 film.
For the producers, however, that level of anticipation has meant they have been keenly aware of the need not to disappoint when recreating the movie’s most famous scenes.
According to director James Powell, the creative team has had to make considerable use of video footage and revolving scenery in order to imitate the fast-paced editing of the film version.
Powell told The Stage: “There are incredibly iconic moments from the movie which the fan base know off by heart, yet whereas in the film they can jump from one shot to another, we have had to find a way of making it work seamlessly live.
“As a result, we’ve got a complex set with two revolves, one of which can split in two and drop levels, so things can move and shift in the blink of an eye. As a camera would pan and move across, the revolve can be used in the same way and gives us a very smooth way of going from one scene to another.
“People know the film so well that one of the key pleasures for them is seeing how we’re going to handle moments like the famous log scene. Because we couldn’t suddenly cut to a log in the theatre, we came up with the idea of having a crack of lighting and the log appearing falling from stage right. Luckily, that gets one of the best reactions of the night.”
Meanwhile, video and projection designer Jon Driscoll was sent all around the world to film sequences for the video projections that help the show jump from one location to the next. The babbling brook that the famous log traverses, for example, was in fact filmed in Scotland, while a film of the journey from Brooklyn to the holiday resort is projected behind a car in the production’s first sequence to Baby’s famous opening lines.
However, the team were also aware of the dangers of making the show too cinematic.
“It was something we fought against,” said Powell. “We wanted the same pulse, rhythm and flow through the piece, so we used these things as devices but we didn’t want them to be the most prominent aspect of the show.
“Otherwise, people would feel they were just watching the film and then they might just go out and buy that instead.”
* Dirty Dancing - The Classic Story on Stage is previewing now and opens on October 24 at the Aldwych Theatre.
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