This musical gives me mixed feelings, similar to how Hbomberguy felt after watching the web series RWBY.
The execution of the cast’s acting and singing, as well as the quality of the music, is surprisingly significantly better than the iteration of RHMP last year (Oil). Not only was the music performed with minimal mistakes, the songs and BGMs featured in the musical fit well to the story and are coherent as a whole series. Yes, even the unusual-sounding Limbo, as it accompanies the otherworldly part of the show.
The structure of this musical is creative, but limited perhaps due to practical reasons: it explores the concept of diverging storylines and offers the live audience a choice of how the story develops. Still, it’s a predetermined, binary choice, so it’s ridiculous to compare it with an improvisational theatre. Moreover, it might even possibly be merely a Hobson’s choice: no matter which one you choose, there’s actually only one way the story would develop. If that’s actually the case, well, it’s a clever but sinister audience engagement technique, though the audience may be quite frustrated if they realise that their choices do not have any impact at all.
Story-wise, after watching the musical, I was initially puzzled by the overall direction of the plot, especially how the characters’ dynamics and interactions progresses. “What is the ’taxi driver’ doing here?” “Why is the main character acting like he cannot decide anything by himself, so much so that I even doubt if he’s ever sincere in pursuing his pianist aspiration?” “What is the significance of the buddy character in affecting the main character’s development?” It gave me so much questions and confusions!
However, after spending some time digesting the plot of the musical, I’ve then realised that there really is no point in treating this student musical too seriously and trying too hard to find any thought-provoking message or social commentary within the story. This musical is never intended to be serious, as the main selling points of this musical are really just the jokes (some of which are meta-oriented), instead of the moral that it conveys, if any at all.
Essentially, if you’re expecting a musical that properly explores the challenges and struggles of aspiring musicians nowadays in establishing a musical career in the world today in which everything is fiercely competing for everyone’s attention and the access to music creation has become unprecedentedly easy which results in an increasingly saturated job market, or an inspiring story about the growth of a teenager with a pianist dream who is able to rise up from his personal hardships or trauma and adapt a more meaningful attitude in life akin to the plot of the manga “Your Lie in April”, you’d be disappointed. It’s actually just yet another cliche slice-of-life musical that tells the story of a young man called Asher who has an aspiration that does not align well with the expectation of the society he lives in, and faces difficulty in juggling between working hard for his dream and paying attention to the loved ones around him. The message it brings is in fact pretty cliche: while you’re chasing your own dreams, don’t forget the loved ones around you who are equally important. That’s it. Nothing special here. Nevertheless, it’s still conveyed decently, especially the inclusion of the mysterious ’taxi driver’ character that makes the story more interesting, though it takes time to understand the purpose of this character.
In addition, if you’re expecting dramatic changes in a character’s personality as a result of an impactful event, you’d also be disappointed. The characters are overall consistent, but one-dimensional. Iris, a side character acting as the main character’s girlfriend, is just a girl with a typical bossy, tsundere personality. Murphy, another side character acting as the main character’s buddy, is also just an archetypical joker character. Although there is change in some characters’ thoughts and attitudes, the change is so expectable that it hardly constitutes interesting character development, even though it technically is. For example, Mr. Li, the father character, is just yet another example of a stereotypical Asian parent character, which is an almost overused trope. The only character development we see in him is his change in attitude towards the side character Bernadette, who is the main character’s childhood friend and an established pianist, from hostility to guilt due to a misunderstanding. It’s a happy-ending development, but it’s an expected one. The same applies for Asher’s change in attitude near the end when he learns his lesson, which is also expected as it’s basically the point of this show.
Some of the characters may possibly even exhibit out-of-character behaviours. For instance, Mr. Li referenced, though not by directly mentioning, something that raises people’s eyebrows and one would not expect to come out of a stereotypical Asian old man’s mouth when complaining about the main character’s career choices. Iris and Murphy, who’re supposedly not well versed in music (as they’re not established to be one), are somehow able to recite the full title of a classical piano piece very quickly. Although one might justify that this suggests that they have heard the main character doing the same thing so many times that even they can imitate it, the timing when it occurs is still so random that such justification sounds pretty far-fetched. By the way, the main character reciting the full title of a piece (which is already pretty weird in its own regard), as well as rushing around for piano practices, are the only musically inclined traits we see from him. This shows a lack of thought and research in portraying a piano enthusiast character, possibly due to an excessive focus on making jokes. We could have seen him passionately sharing the history and compositional techniques behind a piano piece, or practising the piano tirelessly in the way actual piano learners would do: scribbling the score, playing a section at a slower tempo with a metronome, and so on. Sadly, these are absent in the show, making the characterisation underwhelming, lack depth and provide limited engagement.
As for the dialogue, they are overall decent. The jokes scattered throughout are mostly funny, if you understand the context. While there are some jokes that acknowledge and make fun of the stupidity of the development of some parts of the plot or certain choices made by the main character (though ironically the show is supposedly about making life decisions), which makes a potential plot hole not quite a plot hole, as well as meta jokes that reference plot devices themselves, such as ‘plot armour’ and ‘breaking the fourth wall’, some other jokes to me feel too niche: they are either RHMP-specific in-jokes, or Singaporean-specific. Well, the main target audience of the show is almost entirely Singaporean anyways, so perhaps it doesn’t really matter to them if the jokes cannot be well understood internationally, though it’s still quite a shame for them to go for a very localised, and hence possibly restrictive, route to craft their jokes.
Treating this show as a typical life-oriented musical, there are still parts that deserve some credit. The flashback scene, accompanied with a well-structured BGM, is a good direct portrayal of the main character’s inner thoughts. The plot twist that brings the main character to a near-death situation and thus leads to that flashback scene is also fairly noticeably foreshadowed, so it’s not particularly confusing (or shocking, really, even if it’s intended to be one). However, the subplots within the show, one of which involves Mr. Li’s misdirected hate towards Bernadette due to a stupid move made by Asher, while another involves Iris and Murphy talking (and singing) about how much they care about the main character, do not seem to integrate well with the main plot and affect its progression at all, which make them look like merely fillers, though still a bearable one.
All in all, this is a typical student musical that never sets out to be deep, philosophical, or something that intends to convey a meaningful message that seeks to address a current issue in the society. It’s just a show with surface-level morals that is still entertaining and engaging enough to watch, to enjoy the singing of the actors as well as the music played by the performers. It’s a fun watch, but it’s also a wasted potential as its piano-themed premise could’ve been an opportunity to explore more meaningful questions, which is absent in the actual show, thereby reducing the piano theme to a window dressing, in a show that is scattered with jokes at the expense of truly serious values.