Tympanium Euphorium's production of George Abbott's The Pajama Game, directed by Jennifer Paul '07, choreographed by Avital Asuleen '06 and musically directed Rachel Shapp '06 and Masya Uchino '06 was overall a mediocre performance with few high points thrown in.
The show takes place in the mid 1950s at the Sleeptight Pajama Game Factory where there is a growing conflict between the union and the administration over a seven-and-a-half cent raise. In the midst of this is the budding romance between Sid Sorkin, played by Eli Schneider '06, and Babe Williams, played by Jessica Perelle '07. The plot follows the very traditional and formulaic plot-boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back.Both Schneider and Perelle put on fantastic musical performances, demonstrating command of the stage and of the music. While Schneider was consistently excellent, he did especially well with the Broadway standard "Hey There," which fulfilled every actor's dream of being able to do a duet with yourself, though it would have been infinitely cooler if they had the voice recording be Billy the Singing Mailman. Perelle was also a consummate professional on the stage, especially during "I'm Not At All in Love," where she revealed what a contralto is supposed to sound like.

Unfortunately, while both Schneider and Perelle acted well, both of their characters felt under-developed. Sid, a former laborer, is trying desperately to keep the factory running because he does not want to go back to that life.

Babe often seems inexplicably detached from the rest of the characters, and never has a clear motivation for being removed, even though the script presents her simpleton father as an easy answer.

It appeared as though Paul either never spent enough time with her actors formulating their characters, or just never spent any time at all.
Luckily, a musical is rarely based off of acting and focuses mainly on vocal and dance talent. Shapp did an excellent job preparing all of the vocalists, especially the supporting characters like Gladys, played by Sarah Simpson '04, Prez, played by Cory Clinton '06 and Hines, played by Adam Ross '07, all of whom shone when the spotlight turned on them. The best example of this was "Her Is," which not only demonstrated Clinton and Simpson's vocal prowess, but their ability to channel their characters through dance.

Sadly, a lot of the musical numbers were tainted by annoying lighting, which went through a drastic change at the beginning of each number. While it is often necessary for lighting changes during dance numbers, it needs to be more subtle in order prevent the musical from seeming poorly structured with another song, then a scene, then another song and then scene.

Additionally, in numbers like "Hernando's Hideaway," there were poor choices of colors for the silhouettes when they broke away from the warm spectrum to introduce cool colors such as blues and purples, which were very contrary to the tone of the song.

Most important, in an Abbott/Fosse musical is the dancing, which historically has been all that anyone ever remembers about this show. Asuleen did not disappoint, especially in "Hernando's Hideaway," where sexual movement combined with an innovative usage of posed silhouettes captured the audience, and "Once a Year Day" where matching colours provided amazing aesthetics. Asuleen, a highly proficient dancer herself, showed tremendous restraint in the difficulty of her choreography making it easier to perform for non-dancing cast members.

Despite Asuleen's attempts at simplicity, there were still issues with the dancing, especially during "Steam Heat," perhaps the most popular number in the entire show. Of the dancing trio, there always appeared to be one member out of sync with the other two, which made it all the more obvious that they were off the rhythm.

However, this was not a common trend, and most of her dances like the "Jealousy Ballet" and the dance interludes in "Her Is" and "I'll Never Be Jealous Again" were outstanding.

The show was also plagued by little amateur mistakes throughout the course of the performance. For example, the sewing machines were lumpy, the costumes were not all in period, the blocking was flat, there were sloppy tech changes and often, the setting was unclear. All of these problems, while small, combined to diminish from the overall quality of the show. The worst part is that most of them could have been avoided if the director had had placed more of her attention on details.

On the whole, the show was enjoyable to watch because of a strong showing by its principle characters and an excellent performance from the supporting ensemble; however, the amateur mistakes of a green director were painfully obvious to most in the audience.