Goodbye Vaudeville Charlie Mudd

Goodbye Vaudeville Charlie MuddMalthouse Theatre
Arena Theatre Company
17 March 2009
Beckett Theatre, CUB Malthouse

In recent years, playwright Lally Katz and director Chris Kohn have created some of the most fascinating and original independent theatre in town. Goodbye Vaudeville Charlie Mudd is the result of research grant, a commission from Malthouse and the resources of Arena Theatre - and I’m left wondering if this support has hindered their style.

Hours in the State Library reading room and searching through seemingly endless Tivoli memorabilia inspired the 1914 world of Melbourne vaudeville. Charlie Mudd’s theatre sits on the Swanston River, performing the same show every night to an empty audience. Act 1 may be as close to seeing pre-WW1 vaudeville as we are likely to get, with its exquisitely detailed design and recreations of bad vaudeville acts, all with a sprinkling of Katz darkness – of course.

It did feel like the story was just sprinkled around though. For all its authenticity, Act 1 played too much like a vaudeville sketch, with little character development and a surprising lack of mystery.
The terrific writing and originally dark stories emerged in Act 2, especially surrounding ventriloquist Maude and her search for love. The great stuff really stood out; the rest felt like padding. Hidden in the two and a half hour show is a remarkable 70-minute piece.

On stage, the relationships between characters felt dictated by plot, not character. The plot is brilliant, but the story doesn’t live until the characters make it real. I didn’t believe that Ethelyn (or Violet) loved Charlie or that Charlie loved Violet (or Ethelyn) and I didn’t believe that the magician believed that his magic was real. Whether it’s in the writing or not, the acting and direction have to make the characters choose their actions from their very real beliefs. The story feels forced if the love isn’t real.

The reality of the world was also questioned with an inconsistent performance style. What made a show like Katz/Kohn’s The Eisteddfod  soar was that the director and actors never let their audience doubt the reality of their naturally-absurd world. In Vaudeville, Christian O’Leary as Maude, and her wonderfully obscene dummy Doris, nailed the style, but others kept letting us into the “secret” that they were just playing pretend. During the after-show chat there was an active discussion among the actors about who they were performing to, and I realised why I was frustrated by otherwise great performances: the moment someone performed to the assembled Malthouse audience and not Mudd’s empty house, the onstage world died.

Goodbye Vaudeville Charlie Mudd isn’t a bad way to spend an evening, but it isn’t the show it wants to be. Hopefully some time with an audience has let it settle and it will hit its stride as it heads into its last week.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.