By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Oh, kids complaining about how their parents don’t pay attention to them. Nothing new there, except the parents in question are the pantheon of Greek deities. Those gods, we are told in driving rock rhythm and melody, are real.
The chorus of kids with gripes are their offspring from coupling with human beings. In this setting their offspring are called half-bloods. And our hero, Percy Jackson is about to discover he’s one, and that’s not easy.
Horizon Youth Theatre is staging “The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical,” directed by Cassie Greenlee, at the Ohio Theatre, 3112 Lagrange Ave., Toledo. The musical, based on the first book of Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series, will be presented today (Friday, June 3,) Saturday, June 4, at 7 p.m. and Sunday, June 5, at 2 p.m.. Tickets are $12 and $15 and are available at the door or at the HYT website. Seating is general admission.
It’s not like Percy (Gavin Miller) doesn’t have his share of troubles to begin with. He’s a kid with a troubled home life who doesn’t fit in. After a strange confrontation during a visit to the museum, he finds himself expelled from school. Again.
His mother (Whitney Bechstein) tries to reassure him. “What makes you different is what makes you strong,” she sings.
But that’s not strong enough to prevent his mother from getting killed by the Minotaur. Percy with his best friend Grover (Eli Marx), who he discovers is a satyr, escape to a place called Half-Blood Camp, a summer camp for the children of gods and humans.
He’s greeted by Mr. D (Jacobi Edge) who is flamboyantly dismissive with the flair of a comic character from Shakespeare.
These kids have “issues.”
As Luke (Drew Thomas) tells him, the gods are busy, and they have lots of kids. Still the half-bloods long for some recognition. Take Annabeth (Rose Walters) who is the daughter of Athena. True to her heritage, she’s smart and she’s tough, and she’s eager to show both those things off.
On his first day, the campers play capture the flag, using swords. Annabeth is the leader against the team led by Clarisse (Rebecca Lanham). Annabeth sends Percy to the restroom so he doesn’t mess things up, but Clarisse attacks him there – as Annabeth intended. He was just a way to distract her.
Annabeth wants to prove herself so her mother will acknowledge her and send her on a quest.
Instead it is Percy who gets a quest – to retrieve a bolt of Zeus’ lightning that Percy is at first suspected of stealing.
Percy, Grover and Annabeth head out, attacked along the way by monsters. The most fearsome is Medusa (Alice Walters), who ends up headless. Annabeth explains it was her mother, in a fit of jealousy, who turned the once beautiful Medusa into a gruesome monster.
As the trio of heroes traverse the United States to Los Angeles – because that’s where the underworld is – we learn more about them and their struggles.
Grover tells, in “The Tree on the Hill,” of his own great failing when a young girl Thalia (Claire Nelson), whom he was leading to the camp, was killed as she fought the monsters to allow him and the others, Annabeth and Luke, to escape.
Percy, Grover, and Annabeth arrive at the underworld. They meet Charon (Haska Stiegler) who guides people to the underworld, all the while dreaming of being a pop star. She demonstrates her show chops in “D.O.A.”
In the end, mysteries are solved; Percy meets his father Poseidon (Leo Roberts-Zibbel ); and loose ends are tied up, but not so tightly as to forestall a sequel.
That’s clear as the cast sings “Bring on the Monsters,” and Percy promises: “I’ll be Back Next Summer.”
And we trust the HYT troupe will be back next summer with another production. It will be tough to top “The Lightning Thief,” but they certainly will do their best.
