Steven and Maureen Van Zandt brought their production of Once Upon a Dream to the Royal Alex here in Toronto, beginning a few nights ago. The show features the original Rascals, a New Jersey pop group from the 60s that had a string of catchy, well-produced and mostly recognizable hits such as Groovin’ and Good Lovin’. We like some of the tunes and we heard about the show from the PR blitz done by Mr. Van Zandt prior to the production coming to Toronto, so we decided to go.

The theatre was just about full and most everyone appeared to be having a better time than we were.  The whole thing just seemed wrong. These guys more or less recreated their sound on stage, now 40 years later, but the sound was too loud and some of the singing was, well, not so good. In the background, on a giant screen, we watched some sort-of-psychedelic images mixed with band members telling their story and what appeared to be re-enactments of key moments of their early career. The band seemed to be reading scripts, and some were better readers than others. It would have been a lot more interesting to hear them actually interviewed, telling their story in their own words. But then, the story really wasn’t all that captivating, except maybe to Rascals super-fans. The production values were not up to a level I would expect in a professional production. The video was choppy and it didn’t flow really well. Maybe it was supposed to evoke 60s production values, or maybe it was simply a budget production.

Singer Eddie Brigati looked like he was having a great time dancing about with a pair of tambourines, but it was a strange and awkward thing to watch, song after song. I guess they had him do that to add some visual interest to the band. To us, it was just weird.

We lasted until the intermission, then headed for home.  Perhaps the folks to the left and right of us wondered what happened to us after the break – they were clapping along and having a great time in the first half. The fellow to the right of me was even filming parts of the show on his iPhone. Maybe it was more of a nostalgia trip for them. They were a little older than us, I think, and while we were kids during the Rascals’ heyday, they were likely teens. Maybe they had important memories from their teens associated with some of those tunes, and that infused the show with more meaning for them than it had for us. Maybe it was a great show and we just didn’t get it. Maybe, but I don’t think so.