Mulligan’s Island

sb & me productions—MTC Mainstage

I had very high hopes for this musical and all begins well—until they start singing.

Every cast member has singing and key issues. If your star player is Kay Dee Pairy, I would hope that she would be the best vocalist. She isn’t; in fact, she’s one of the worst for falling out of key. Granted, she looks quite a bit like the real Perry but that’s not enough to hold the role.

To make things worse, Mrs Howell’s mic didn’t work properly. Instead of hearing her voice, you often heard muffled static. And the problems didn’t end here! The choreography was pathetically simple, like something that was rehearsed for a day in someone’s basement.

Here’s the worst part: in this iteration, Mr Howell is a billionaire industrialist. Howell’s jacket fits him so poorly, it looks like he grabbed it off a Thrift Store rack. It’s too big, too long, and the sleeves cover his knuckles.  I don’t think a billionaire would wear a jacket that looked and fit like a security guard uniform.

It’s not all bad—some of the characters nailed the original actors’ idiosyncrasies, and some of the songs are catchy—well, a large part are takeoffs on Katy Perry tunes, so that’s expected.

This is a very disappointing effort.

Ray Yuen