Composer/producer Kevin Saunders Hayes, the man behind Vox Lumiere, wrote songs designed to reflect what transpires on the screen towering over the stage: namely, the tortured tale of Quasimodo, a tragically deformed and publicly reviled bell-ringer in 15th century Paris who falls for a beautiful and much desired gypsy named Esmeralda.
After all these years, even in flickering black and white, the silent images of Chaney's hunchbacked outcast unjustly punished and flogged in the city square - and Esmeralda's act of kindness - remain achingly affecting.
The four-piece band, comprising guitarists Jeff Miley and Christian Nesmith (yes, ex-Monkee Mike Nesmith's son), bassist Zac Matthews, and drummer Joel Alpers, remained in the background, delivering technically proficient accompaniment that ran the gamut from '80s-style heavy metal to medieval hymns.
Despite such range, however, the problem was that those rock power ballads and operatic, Queen-size theatrics just didn't feel like the right fit for either the bittersweet mood, or ancient look, of the movie. The dancers, clad in metal and glam-Goth garb and dressed mostly in blacks and reds with silver glitter accents, were in uniformly strong voice (the single-monikered Lawson as the "Voice of Clopin - The Miracle Man," in particular, possessed a confident yet relaxed presence; Victoria Levy, as the voice of Esmeralda, was also a standout).
But the choreography - which resembled a series of Bob Fosse-meets-Madonna bump-and-grinds, plus a sequence or two that recalled "Thriller"-era Michael Jackson videos - seemed at distracting odds with the story and, with few exceptions, failed to adequately convey the anguish, anger, and pathos of the main character on screen.
Perhaps the sleekly modern bent of Vox Lumiere's production has worked more effectively in adaptations of futuristic tales such as "Metropolis." In this context, however, those big numbers felt a bit out of time and place. Ultimately, Chaney - the so-called "Man of a Thousand Faces" - didn't benefit from such a garish makeover.
