This show was overpriced for what it offered. While the musicians were fully professional, and a couple of the actors also, the production on the whole felt like community theatre. Most of the cast was weak, as was the direction.
While the lead had a good voice and was a strong actress and the young woman playing Birgita also, the male lead and the other kids were poorly cast. The kids were too old for their parts, one was playing transgender (i.e. a grown woman was playing a 12-year-old boy), and the youngest, who was supposed to be 5 but was older, didn't have a good voice and couldn't act. One would think a national production could have drawn on enough talent agencies to come up with a cast that was really the age portrayed with decent vocal and acting abilities.
Ditto for the male lead. Are you telling me that in all of Canada, you couldn't find a tenor with a better voice than this guy for Edelweiss? I realize that Christopher Plummer is a tough act to follow, but still.
The directing choices were also weak a lot of the time, with less drama emerging from the scenes than there might have been, and too much emphasis was given to the politics and adult romance in the second half. It didn't 'develop' and was very monotonal. Austrian good, Nazi bad. Anyone who sympathizes with Nazis bad. Anyone who maintains their Austrian-ness good.
Disappointing. I spent over $500 on tickets for various family members.