Review: Pennsylvania Avenue

Pennsylvania Avenue
Melbourne Theatre Company
13 November 2014
Sumner Theatre
to 20 December
mtc.com.au

Photo by Jeff Busby

Last week, Melbourne's two mainstage companies opened shows by Melbourne writers. Both directed by Melbourne directors and featured Melbourne performers and creators. Both were also set in the USA and based on US culture. But the chasm between Pennsylvania Avenue, at the MTC, and Calpurnia Descending, at Malthouse Theatre, is so wide that one can barely wave at the other.

Pennsylvania Avenue gets the Songs for Nobodies gang back together. Written by Joanna Murray-Smith, directed by Simon Phillips and performed by Bernadette Robinson, Nobodies is a heartfelt work about five fictional nobodies who encounter five famous and broken singer somebodies (Garland, Cline, Piaf, Holiday and Callas). Each story is complete and uses the music and Robinson's talent to mimic to add so much to the stories about how nobody is really a nobody.

Pennsylvania Avenue started with the same idea and ran in the other direction.

Set in the Blue Room, another oval room, in the East Wing of the White House in Washington, it's the story of nobody Harper Clements who worked as a social secretary at the White House from presidents Kennedy to Bush jnr. She's well over 50 (the horror) and it's time for her to leave with her cardboard box of memories, like when she recommended that Marilyn Monroe take her knickers off to get a better line in the dress when she sang "Happy Birthday" to Kennedy and when she accidentally suggested to Reagan that "Tear down that wall" would help his Berlin speech. With photos of her in the background of famous photos, her story begs for more inside knowledge of the White House and the people who live and work there, and for a greater insight into her own politics.

But she's fiction. In all fairness, it's never claimed that she's real, but it was the question everyone was asking after the show because she seemed real enough to wonder.

So why this story? Why is Melbourne's flagship company commissioning a story that has no direct or even thematic connection to Australia? Apart from maybe the fact that side-stepping politics is easy. The post-show treats were even Budwiser and fries with USA stickers on the box.

When did Melbourne become the out-of-town try out city for Broadway? Because that's where this show wants to go and as a bland celebration of USA culture, it might run for years.

The inspiration of the work is Robinson and she continues to sing like the best. This time she sings the songs of people who performed at or visited the White House (including Monroe, Streisand – "she's Jewish – Vaughan, Kitt, Ross and Dylan – Bob). But while there was connection in Nobodies, there was little connection between songs and this character. And this time the mimicing felt weird. Why doesn't Harper sing as Harper? It felt like a drag show without any of the subversion.

Meanwhile, a couple blocks away at the Malthouse, Calpurnia Descending opened. It has already had a run in Sydney, but this is the first time the locally-adored punk camp Sisters Grimm have had a main stage show in their home town.

And it has enough subversion, heart and guts (and drag) to make up for Pennsylvania Avenue.

Calpurnia Descending review.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.

Review: Songs For Nobodies

Songs For Nobodies
Duet, A Melbourne Theatre Company Production
4 January 2012
Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre Melbourne
to 13 January, then touring
songsfornobodies.com

Somehow I'd missed Bernadette Robinson in Songs for Nobodies. If you also missed it, or know that you have to see it again, it's back in Melbourne at the Arts Centre and it is as great as everyone said it was.

I admit that I'm always dubious about a showcase work – and it's not like Melbourne has a shortage of  Judy Garland, Patsy Cline, Edith Piaf, Billie Holiday or Maria Callas impersonators – so I went along mostly out of curiosity. Sure, curiosity sometimes kills, but it also uncovers choice treats and pillowy warm spots to rest and dream.

First seen in 2009, Songs for Nobodies was created to show off Robinson's astonishing singing. And rightly so; hers is a voice that grabs your heart at first note and doesn't let ago until there's silence. Director Simon Phillips saw this and, knowing that it had to be more than a cabaret, brought playwright Joanna Murray-Smith on board to find the story for this remarkable voice.

The soul of this new work comes from Murray-Smith's decision to not write about the divas whose songs Robinson sings, but to create stories about five nobodies whose lives were changed after encountering one of the great singers. From a 36-year-old ladies room attendant fixing Judy's hem after her concert at Carnegie Hall to a young journalist interviewing Billie and an English librarian telling how her father saw Edith perform in a prison camp, each story is complete and perfect and, for everyone who has seen this show, now inseparable from the well-known songs that accompany them.

Robinson's performance as ten different women is as magnificent as her singing and what makes this show so unforgettable is her seamless merge between characters without any hint of herself in between. For a work all about the performer, the performer is nowhere to be seen and she lets the five nobodies and five broken somebodies soak in the audience love.

This sadly leaves us with  no idea who Bernadette is or how she sounds when she's singing as herself. I'd have loved to see a sixth story or even an encore song, but I wonder if that revelation would take away from all that went before?

Songs For Nobodies is for Judy, Patsy, Edith, Billie and Maria fans and for anyone who hasn't heard them.  Robinson grasps what was unique and incredible about each singer and makes each song sound like it had never been sung before. It's on in Melbourne until Sunday 13 January, then it's off to Sydney and Adelaide.

This appeared on AussieTheatre.com