Casino: The Musical (staged reading)

If anyone has heard of Musical Theatre Limited (MTL), they might have heard of the incubation programme they have to aid new writers in creating their own musicals.Usually, there will be a performance of some sort of the musical that comes out of the programme. Well, Casino was one of those, written by Richard Lord, with music composed by Kenneth Lyen. In this case, it was a staged reading.

I admit that it couldn't engage me beyond a certain point. Why? I realised the reason that the musical felt "disorganised". The structure wasn't very clear and the main gist/goal/focus seem to get lost or shifted along the way. In the beginning, it seemed it was set out to be a bet between two people on whether luck or technique prevailed in gambling, by which they had to find a casino "virgin" to test out. However, this was not explored or developed beyond that first mention, of which was totally forgotten until it was decidedly brought up in Act 2, like an afterthought. It would have been more interesting if there were more signs of the competition between the 2. The novice casino-goer, which turned out to be the protagonist didn't come out strong enough. Or maybe due to the context, we couldn't empathise with him. There wasn't any particular highs or lows to bring us into the musical either, just a story that goes on, or any songs that stood out with the changing themes. Not that the songs weren't any good, but they felt a bit disjointed, with little (musical) links between them, if you get what I mean. I guess the absence of any distinct conflicts (which would contribute to the highs & lows) made it more a play with songs. Usually, in musicals, the situation would call for a song, where the character can only express him/herself through singing. Of course, we don't expect every song in a musical to be so, but it usually comes with some emotional circumstance or occasion, whether happy, sad, angry, etc.

Well, to give credit, the book and lyrics were rather creative and clever, for it isn't easy coming out with witty words in the context. Unfortunately, I felt the humour a little contrived, such that it fell short in bringing on laughs (in my case). Maybe Richard was trying too hard to be smart with the words. He's good at that, but somehow, it didn't come through in the musical. You could tell he gave a lot of effort in working the words but it didn't work out in the context, maybe. Moreover, I felt the earthquake reference was slightly in bad taste. Well, maybe it might have felt different in a play setting.

I felt it might have had a good premise (the bet) to start with, which in my own interpretation, would be good to play up. Whatever their intent, I felt more emphasis could have been made on showing the irony that as the 2 tried to manipulate the protagonist with their "luck" and "technique" presumptions, there are greater forces beyond them that is "playing" them. If that was the moral or intention of the musical, then it should have developed that way, at least in my own personal opinion. But to each his own. Maybe they were going another direction which I couldn't see.

Well, at least I learnt that there should be some sort of structure, focus and a consistent theme of songs in a musical.