Review: Shark Symphony

After the award-winning show Bug Symphony and greatly acclaimed performance of WILD in Hong Kong and London, original musicals have become the key programme of the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong. This year CCOHK produced their third musical Shark Symphony and world premiered it in Tsuen Wan Town Hall. 

Written by the founder and artistic director of CCOHK Leanne Nicholls, Shark Symphony follows the ‘tradition’ of the previous musicals, in which the protagonists always come in pair. The story is about two businessmen, Ken and Michael (Perrin Pang and Michael Sharmon), who have started an underwater restaurant “The Deep”. It specializes in sustainable seafood dishes paired with spectacular underwater views. The major investor Doris Ng (Jessica Ng) requests her daughter Belle (Crisel Consunji) to be one of the performers in the restaurant. Ken and Belle fall in love and decide to get married. But this is the beginning of an unforeseeable conflict…

The musical is semi-staged in which the orchestra plays upstage behind a gauze screen, leaving the space at downstage for other performers. CG view of the exuberant underwater world created by Gary Chan is projected onto the screen. Tables are set at either side of the stage where most of the acting takes place.

The drama in the first half is quite straightforward, Ken and Michael introduce their dishes to Doris and the influential food critic Mrs. Moore (Jacqueline Gourlay Grant), followed by the performance of the respective species. 

The conflict arises in the second half when Belle and her mother disagree about shark fin soup to be served during her wedding banquet, but the tension is not resolved as the story ends quite abruptly that the couple weds happily, without noticing the shark fin soup is secretly served.  

There are 9 songs in the first half and 7 songs in the second half (reprise included), one may feel too much weight has been put on the first half (a similar unbalance was also found in WILD). Some numbers from the first half can be cut and leave some more room in the second half for solving the conflict.

Crisel Consunji, who came into fame by her performance in the movie Still Human, is one of the highlights of the evening. Her voice is sweet and beautiful. She is very cautious in controlling the timbre of her voice. With her elegant presence on the stage, reminiscent of a Disney princess, especially when she dresses in yellow, just like Belle from the Beauty and the Beast.

Her emotional last number ‘Still Life’ could be the title song of the musical. Unfortunate the atmosphere is ruined at the end when the ‘dead shark’ in the middle of the stage suddenly ‘comes back into life’, sliding back to the side stage for his next entry. 

Multi-talented Finnish musician Antti Paalanen doesn’t only impress the audience with his accordion playing, but also the throat singing, a technique to produce a deep low voice. His voice provides a bass color that is a perfect choice to represent the danger of shark (that’s why John Williams uses a bass introduction for his famous main theme in Jaws).  

The audiences are dazzled by the extremely diverse performances; belly dance, sword dance, cyr wheel dance, acrobat, breakdance, etc. It is truly a feast of visual performances and they are all very entertaining. 

The costume and the make up is very eye-watching, transforming performers into different lifelike sea creatures. For example, the mysterious anglerfish is portrayed by the performers wearing helmets in the shape of anglerfish with the ‘eyes’ light on; Manta ray is imitated by the cyr wheel artist Zara Asa wearing a costume with sheer cape. When he moves with his wheel, it looks like a real manta ray swimming in the sea.

Credit has to be given to the violin leader and the music director Amelia Chan, who did well in holding the orchestra and the musicians playing before the screen together. 

As a family-friendly musical, Shark Symphony succeeds in providing joy and surprise to both the kids and parents. CCOHK has now completed musicals about bugs, animals in the jungle and marine life. Maybe they should consider preparing their next musical on birds.