Big Shot won the “Spirit of the festival” award at the San Diego International Fringe Festival last year. We follow the story of Jeremy Crocker, a successful defense lawyer in New York City. Crocker falls in love with Carrie, an Irish artist who works in Crocker’s usual coffee stop. As they spend more time with each other there is a revelation that Carrie is very closely related to Croker’s new defence case.I was understandably very excited by the prospect of Big Shot as it was being billed as a “new Irish musical.” Growing up in Ireland myself, I have seen many tiresome and laborious attempts at original theatre and hoped to be proven wrong about the state of modern Irish musical theatre. How do I feel after seeing Big Shot?
This is certainly not the show to revitalise Ireland’s creative input to the art form but it has some very promising elements. Lauryn Gaffney set herself a gruelling challenge in this project to create the music, lyrics and book. Her music feels modern, energetic and exciting with excellent arrangements by Jake Curran and performed by an exceptional band. The performers on top of this all sound fantastic. Some really powerful and impressive vocal work in this show but unfortunately Gaffney appears to be a far better composer than she is a lyric and book writer.
I feel confident in saying that Lauryn Gaffney is one of the best Irish musical theatre composers I have had the pleasure of hearing in recent years. However, Big Shot suffers from major pacing, book and plot issues. Big Shot tells a lot more than it shows. Details about characters are delivered in sometimes painful exposition.
The show conforms to many undesirable tropes of musical theatre. For example, the two romantic leads become completely enamored with each other after a scene where they only speak to each other for a few moments and choreography and musical numbers that have no finesse in their build up and sometimes encapsulate the stereotype that in a musical the performers seemingly burst into song and dance for no reason.
Act one moves very fast without giving us time to get to know the characters in an organic way, whereas in Act two the show starts to live a little. We are introduced to no new characters and see more character development through action not exposition. As for the performances themselves, we never really feel like there is chemistry between our characters as the actors seem not to be listening to each other. I am hard-pressed to think of any moment on stage that I believed emotionally and that is currently Big Shot’s biggest failing.
In summary, if a cast album were to be released I believe that would deliver all of the positive aspects of the show as it would cut out the lackluster script and insincere acting performances.
So, if you want to hear some fantastic new musical theatre songs sung exceptionally well then give Big Shot a shot, but only pay price of admission after significant rewrites to its book.
This show was my first visit to the venue under the new artistic directorship of Emma Rice. The atmosphere has certainly livened up a bit with a covers band playing blatantly amplified music and the use of stage lighting. Under previous regimes this move away from traditional Elizabethan theatre practices would have been unthinkable, the venue used to be lit with a flood lights giving the same general wash over stage and spectators throughout.