The Noteables Lehman Hall Cambridge, MA May 2, 2009

The Noteables, a performance group focused on musical theater, were helped by neither the venue nor their songs choices during the showcase as part of Arts First Weekend at Harvard University. For starters, the acoustics in Lehman Hall were painfully stifled, half of the performers were mouthing the words but no one in the audience could hear the sound. A percussion performance in another building pounded its way through the room to compete with the piano accompaniment for the entire twenty minutes.

But even that would have been overcome had the performance itself not been pretty weak. Half the troupe seemed ill prepared for the opening number There’s No Business Like Show Business, as if they had never seen the choreography before. The song choices were particularly strange since half of the songs were tasteless, totally inappropriate for the crowd of parents and young kids like the lament from Chicago, Class, which is mostly a string of vulgar observations. Don’t Be the Bunny was enjoyable, if a little out of context. That left their signature song, Corner of the Sky, which at the least showcased the performers at their best as a group. But considering they were trying to pitch their upcoming full-length performance, this montage seemed really ill-considered.