Voca People: A review

Eight white-faced aliens have landed Off-Broadway at The Westside Theatre! They need to energize their space-craft so they can return to their world. Their power source is music. “Life is musica; musica is life.”

The a cappella group, consisting of five men and three women, goes through 90 minutes of music, comedy and audience interaction. The show is a pleasant musical romp. The group members represent the six basic musical voice types.Two of the members do beat-boxing, a sort of vocal percussion.

They begin musically refueling by touching the head of a member of the audience to absorb his language and his musical memories. They perform snippets of several songs, almost like an historical survey. However, just as the audience recognizes the song, the group is on to the next piece. One segment of the show features movie musical themes. Then there’s a classical theme as well as a lengthy beat-boxing segment. Much of the first part of the show is musical excerpt. Much later the group gets to do mash-ups of individual songs including “People are strange “ and a nice mix of Queen music

The talented singers go into the audience and interact with several members, bringing some on stage and playfully fooling around with others in the theater. One alien draped herself over the laps of the three people in front of me. In one cute number, the Voca People imitated instruments.

Although the audience involvement is entertaining, it does get a bit tedious after awhile because, quite frankly, it’s more fun watching people onstage when you know them. When you don’t, the gimmick loses its appeal quickly. Voca People would provide a great fundraising venture for an organization.

The eight ruby-lipped singers have excellent voices and put on a good show. Voca People is good family fun.