GO! If you hear about it just go, don’t think. Till now I used to tell everyone Lion King was the best musical/play ever… now it’s Jump and they’ve set the bar very very high now. You know when you love something so much you wanna tell your peeps about it in detail… I wanna tell you every joke, sequence and sound effect… don’t worry I wont spoil too much.
Started of with this old man struggling to walk around in the audience. He gets crowd participation as he gets a girl to help him up the stairs so the jokes and laughs had already started. The stage and back drop was the same throughout, like a veranda and facade of a building… well Chinese tracing paper material stuff you know. The family is introduced with pimping Grand dad, Dad, crazy Mom, very Flexible daughter, geek boyfriend that turns into gangsta hunk when his glasses are taken off and party boy son. Mix Kung Fu Hustle with Matrix and as Viv said… cartoons… only their martial art is Tae-Kwon-Do. We laughed so much, hell it was so funny we were laughing like black folks jerking in their seats and all. I wanna go again and again man… like these guys had fighting skills, acrobatics, coordination and to go with it all they had the perfect sound fx. Sometimes there was no joke just sound fx and the crowd went in a fit. What else did they do…. oh yeah rewinding and replaying slow motion movie style. Got more crowd participation as they get this guy in a suit to fight and then a hottie. The son did some Jacky Chan drunken martial arts. And to end the first part the young couple get into a dance/acrobatic sequence and then the mom and dad get into a sequence too only the mom wants some, dad doesn’t so they end up doing their own version of the tango.
Also the story was very much like a situational comedy where there is a main dilemma/story, in this case trying to get girl and geek boy together. And then sub dilemmas like for the first part it was getting the place clean? And introducing the main dilemma. The second part was them getting robbed and of course getting the young lovers together. The thieves were so funny, especially the bigger guy with the afro. All of them worked the props just like Jacky Chan would. The music was interesting from hero like guitar that reminded me of Saber Rider, to songs with that twang you hear in Shafts music. Some excellent Matrix effects especially the wind one where one of them runs so fast all the rest actually follow. I was very impressed with the continuity especially when the old man was knocked out behind the couch but you gotta see it to know. They were pretty long with the outro through but it was still great, some swords and glowing fighting stick performance, then individual acrobatics where that big afro guy was too funny coz you think he’d do the same thing like the rest and use the walls to do a flip or something but … he’d surprise you ;o)
Notes: 1- One thing I loved about their jokes was they milked it just right. They’d do it once for the shock value, then again for familiarity value and finally a third one to milk out any laughs left in our funny bones or funny teats. 2 – During the break I went to the sound booth to ask what software they use for their sound fx. They were being evasive so I’m like you have a sound machine? Yes thats it, whatever you say. Lol forgot Indians and Chinese like stealing ideas to make money so don’t ask trade secrets lol.
Mega big up Viv for this one man, fo sho!
