Singin' in the Rain review: Ode to movie magic pushes limits of the stage at Dubai Opera

There’s a reason the film Singin' in the Rain endures. In fact, there are many. About 73 years after its release, it’s still the most potent love letter to movie magic ever committed to film because it’s also the most supreme example of it. Show it to anyone today, even those skeptical of old-fashioned movie musicals, and you’ll find that magic hasn’t lost a step.

Singin’ in the Rain, a stage adaptation showing at Dubai Opera until December 14, strikes a similar balance. Directed by Jonathan Church with choreography by Andrew Wright and set design by Simon Higlett, all veterans of London’s West End, it is a meticulously executed ode to a jewel of Hollywood’s Golden Age.

Most interestingly, however, it is not merely another enjoyable stage adaptation of a great film – these days, those are a dime a dozen. In fact, by recreating the camera tricks, sight gags and ornate set pieces of the film in a theatrical setting, this is proof positive of the enduring power of stage magic, rather than an elaborate advertisement for an old movie.

If you aren’t familiar, let’s recap the old movie in question before we go any further. It’s set in 1927, when the silent film era of Hollywood was coming to an end, though its biggest stars didn’t yet know it. We follow Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) and Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen), two of the most popular actors of their era, unsure of how they’ll fare in the era of talking pictures.

Their first attempt at a “talkie”, The Dueling Cavalier, is poised to be a disaster. Lina has a voice like nails on a chalkboard and a personality to match, and Don, a great talker, can’t adapt to a different way of performing. He meets an aspiring actress named Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds), who says silent film acting is just cheesy pantomime. Don knows she’s right.

Together with Kelly’s best friend and collaborator Cosmo Brown (Donald O’Connor), Don and Kathy team up to save the picture, turning it into musical called The Dancing Cavalier and secretly dubbing Kathy’s voice over Lina’s – much to Lina’s chagrin.

In real life, the film wasn’t supposed to be as great as it was. It’s a bunch of discarded elements all patched together, full of songs that already existed (only one of them is original to the movie), sets that had been built for other projects, and starred an unproven female lead in Debbie Reynolds – though it ended up catapulting her to stardom. But sewn together by some of the most talented performers and craftsmen to ever work in film, it’s a patchwork masterpiece without a single seam on display.

Watching it now, it’s also a testament to how much we’ve lost from the medium. Every scene and every performance is a visual reminder of incredible skills that seemingly no one has in the current talent pool. Could anyone dance like Kelly and O’Connor now? Can colours be that vibrant, sets that intricate? Probably not entirely, but on the Dubai Opera stage, many of those concerns will be alleviated.

The performances range from very good to excellent, with Olivia Finnes, who plays Lina Lamont, a particular stand-out. She does an uncanny impression of Jean Hagen, who in fact was doing an uncanny impression of Judy Holliday in the 1950 film Born Yesterday (see it if you haven’t). Her role is expanded in the stage version, where she gets her own song entitled What’s Wrong With Me? It’s an original added for the 2012 West End revival of the musical on which the Dubai staging is based and captures the spirit of the character with pathos and humour that garnered laughs throughout.

But what is most impressive about this stage version is the sheer awe it inspires at times. The most famous moment in the film, of course, remains the title song sequence, as Gene Kelly sings and dances through a rain-soaked street, incorporating the puddles into his routine. But there’s a different sort of magic when it starts to rain on stage, pushing to the limits of what you may think is possible in that sort of setting. It’s beautifully executed and as rousing as ever. And it’s nearly matched in several other scenes, as the lights and sets shift to recreate even the film’s most surreal moments.

But even if you aren’t a fan of a film, this is still well worth going out of your way to see while it’s on. It may take a bit to get going, but once it does, the magic of the stage is on full display. And you’ll likely be dancing in the aisles on the way out. I was.

Singin' in the Rain is running at Dubai Opera until December 14