Interview: Dean Bryant

Vivid White 
Melbourne Theatre Company
18 November–23 November
mtc.com.au

Vivid White

Eddie Perfect's new show opens this week at MTC. I joined director Dean Bryant on his morning walk to rehearsals for The Music.

Review: Little Shop Of Horrors

Little Shop Of Horrors
Luckiest Productions & Tinderbox Productions
5 May 2016
The Comedy Theatre
to 22 May, then touring
littleshoptour.com.au

Esther Hannaford, Brent Hill, Audrey II

The only down side of the Little Shop of Horrors Melbourne season is that it's only three weeks.

The sci-fi schlock musical by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken (who went onto Disney fame) about a blood-loving plant changing the fate of miserable florist shop workers Seymour and Audrey was inspired by a 1960 film, opened off-Broadway in 1982, and a film of the musical was made in 1986. This version blew Sydney away at the Hayes Theatre earlier in the year and is touring Australia.

The same team that created Sweet Charity at Hayes – Dean Bryant (direction), Andrew Hallsworth (choreography), Andrew Worboys (musical direction), Owen Phillips (design), Ross Graham (lights) and Tim Chappel (costumes) – cut back all dead ideas and preconceptions to grows a fresh, exciting and bloody brilliant version that makes it feel like it were written for now.

Totally over the top, it embraces the ridiculousness and the darkness of the story and by doing so, lets it find its own truth and makes the characters so real that the opening-night audience exploded at the end of "Suddenly Seymour", the show's shmaltzy love song.

Working with Erth Visual & Physical's magnificent, terrifying and all genital inflatable Audrey II plant, Phillips and Chappel's set and costumes are inspired by the 60s but not stuck in the past. They take us from a tiny black and white telly world – complete with Lee Lin Chin – to blooming, 3D, who-turned-up-the-contrast colour.

And everyone in the cast (Brent Hill, Esther Hannaford, Tyler Coppin, Scott Johnson, Josie Lane, Chloe Zuel, Angelique Cassimatis, Dash Kruck, Kuki Topoki) makes the characters so much their own that comparisons to anyone who has gone before them are impossible.

Anyone who says that “audiences” want to see the same old safe musicals that they’ve always seen needs to see what happens when a show is stripped back to book and music, and new creators are allowed to see what they can make from it.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.au.

Review: Sweet Charity

Sweet Charity
Luckiest Productions, Neil Gooding Productions, Tinderbox Productions, Arts Centre Melbourne
26 February 2015
The Playhouse, Arts Centre Melbourne
to 7 March
artscentremelbourne.com.au

Verity Hunt-Ballard and cast. Sweet Charity. Photo by Jeff Busby.

"There's gotta be something better than this." I don't think so.

This time last year, new independent company Hayes Theatre took over an old 110-seat theatre in Potts Point in Sydney and opened with a small-scale production of the Sweet Charity. This 1966 Broadway musical was directed by Bob Fosse and starred Gwen Verdon, and was made into a movie in 1969 that was directed by Fosse and starred Shirley Maclaine. It wasn't surprising that the small venue show sold out but it caused a stir when it was nominated for and won some Helpmann Awards (that don't cover indies). Its return season was at the Opera House in Sydney and it opened for a too-short season in Melbourne last night.

If you're choosing between the musicals on in Melbourne over the next couple of weeks, this is the choice. With a small cast (12), small band (four) and relatively-tiny budget, it packs more punch than the biggest shows on in town and reminds how musical theatre can and should grab you in the guts and make you forget everything except what's on the stage.

Director Dean Bryant, music director Andrew Worboys, choreographer Andrew Hallsworth, and designers Tim Chappel (costume), Owen Phillips (set) and Ross Graham (lights) prove that great musicals can be made without the spectacle and money that dominate commercial shows. Start and end with story and character and you've got a show.

In 1960s New York, Charity Hope Valentine works in dance hall and charges for her body and time but gives her heart away too easily.

The choreography and direction is part-tribute to Fosse's distinct style but is never lost to the memory of past productions, and the late-1960s story is told very much from the perspective of now that and put all hope in Charity getting herself a man.

Verity Hunt-Ballard is Charity. She's amazing. She makes Charity's unselfconsciousness seem natural, while letting her be vulnerable and hopeful underneath the tough-innocent shell that lets her pretend that she can see a way out of the world that isn't going to give her a chance to be more than a cheap dance-hall girl.

Supporting her all the way are Deborah Krisak, Kate Cole, Martin Crewes and an ensemble who always put character first.

The bonus is that every number, including the well-known "Big Spender", "If My Friends Could See Me Now" and "The Rhythm of Life", continues the story on the stage and brings an originality that lets each song stand alone and tell its own story.

The show has been tweaked for bigger theatre but it's still best to be close to really appreciate the performances. I moved from see everything to closer seats in interval and it was a different show.

Sadly Sweet Charity only has a two-week season. I'd love to go again, but that'd mean someone else misses out.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.

Review: Gaybies

There aren't many seats left for Gaybies and it finishes tomorrow/today (Saturday).

Everyone has loved it to pieces and all the reviewers are raving. Here's Cameron's review for a start.

MIDSUMMA 2013
Gaybies
Midsumma and Dale Splender
16 January 2013
Sumner Theatre, MTC
to 19 January
midsumma.org.au

Gaybies is on its way to being an important piece of theatre that shakes up stale and dull opinions. Opening at Midsumma, it's singing show tunes with the choir, but there couldn't be a better and more fabulous audience to introduce this work to.

Created by music theatre director/creator Dean Bryant, Gaybies is the first work commissioned by the Midsumma festival, which has been celebrating queer culture for 25 years. With little time and resources, Bryant explored verbatim theatre – verbatim theatre recreates interviews (The Laramie Project is one of the more famous) – and interviewed people whose voices and stories aren't always heard in the talkback radio screaming, media hoo ha and politician point scoring over what makes a family: children with one or more gay or lesbian parents.

If you've ever even thought "But what about the children?", here's the answer.

There's the awkwardness of seeing your dad at a gay club, the unexplainable death of too many "uncles" in the 80s, surprising a teen boyfriend's mum by explaining that drag queens taught you how to wear pantyhose and heels, and the "who cares!" attitude of friends when you out your mum – but it's mostly stories about kids being kids and parents being parents. And I dare anyone to not relate to at least one story on the stage regardless of their gender, sexuality or attitude.

As the first time it's been seen and having only gone into the rehearsal room this week, it's presented as a semi-read work, but the scripts are noticeable for a few seconds and the books become part of the stage story. There's heart and guts in every story told, but it's Daniel Clarke's gorgeous direction that brings shape and structure to the stage and the script (that's still a bit rambly). With songs, a party table, craft, bubbles and compulsory glitter, he creates context and a reason for everyone to be and stay on the stage and to get up and share their story.

And bringing every bit of love they have to the stage, there's a cast of local favourites who are all so lovely that no one can be singled out: Trevor Ashley, Virginia Gay, Brent Hill,  Gareth Keegan, Kate Kendall, Todd McKenney, Emily Milledge, Ben Mingay, Christina O'Niell, Alex Rathgeber, Georgia Scott, Magda Szubanski, Rob Tripolino and Christie Whelan-Browne.

Gaybies is created to knock out intolerance , but it's more a celebration of everyone who has faced even a hint of that intolerance in their lives and been left wondering or hurt at its ridiculousness. See it because you want to celebrate or just because it's honest, beautiful and heartwarming. And it only runs until Saturday, so you really have to get organised now.

The Midsumma audiences are adoring this show, but to have the impact that it will have, it needs to get  produced, supported and seen widely. I believe that dullness and intolerance can change with truth, so what about starting with performance at a full sitting of our federal parliament?

This was on AussieTheatre.com

Dan Clarke's Midsumma musts

It's heading to 41°C in Melbourne today, so what better time to talk about the Midsumma festival.

Or even better, let's ask Daniel Clarke – winner of the SM  Everything he does rocks award for 2012 – what he's up to for Midsumma.

Theatreworks is presenting three shows and Dan's directing Gaybies. If you can only do four shows this Midsumma, consider your program chosen.

Psycho Beach Party
Little Ones Theatre, Theatre Works
11–19 Jan
book here

When people in the town are attacked in strange sado-masochistic ways, it is up to the surf-bums and a B-Grade Horror star to find the culprit and save a Gidget-esque nerd with a dream to surf from her potentially lethal sexual awakening.

Sydney couldn't get enough of this show, it's directed by Stephen Nicolazzo (sex.violence.blood.gore)  and they wiped out a species of leopardish to create the design. Miss it and you'll regret it.

Or here's Stephen and Ash chatting about it.

Here Lies Henry
TurnAround Productions, Theatre Works
22 – 27 Jan
book here

Another show that Sydney loved, Here Lies Henry challenges the conventional relationship between actor and audience and is described as provocative and uncompromising,  as elusive as it is enlightening and as profound as it is laugh-out-loud funny.

The Dead Ones 
Vitalstatistix, Margie Fischer, Theatre Works
29 Jan – Feb 3
book here

The Dead Ones is Margie Fisher's most recent work.  Margie is a writer and performer who founded Feast, Adelaide's Queer Festival, and is described as a very funny Jewish lesbian (welcome to St Kilda, Margie).  This show's about what happened when everyone in her family died and she was left to clear out their house.

It was first produced by Adelaide's wonderful Vitalstatistix, who have been creating and supporting feminist and gender aware theatre and art since 1984, when they formed as Australia's only full-time women's theatre company, and continue to produce new Australian performance and live art that's provocative, distinctive and informed.

Gaybies

Midsumma

15–19 January

book here

To celebrate Midsumma's 25th birthday, Dean Bryant developed a piece of verbatim theatre about gaybies: children from gay, lesbian, surrogate and all sorts of fabulous families.

With a super cast including Todd McKenney, Kate Kendall, Virginia Gay, Trevor Ashley, Christie Whelan and Alex Rathgeber, there are only six performances at the MTC's Sumner Theatre.

Review: Anything Goes

Anything Goes
The Production Company
20 July 2011
State Theatre, the Arts Centre
to 24 July

"In olden days, a glimpse of..." You know the rest, and the only thing stopping the audience from singing along to The Production Company's Anything Goes was that we wouldn't have heard the wow-em-dead cast inject freshness and glittery life into every number of Cole Porter's favourite musical.

Anything Goes is 1930s Broadway. Before Sondheim made us cry and musicals became boutique, there were dames with long legs, sailors with full flasks, matrons with big hats, criminals with violin cases and delightful plots full of de-lovely conveniences, disguises and shenanigans.

Which doesn't make it especially easy to present to savy contemporary audiences, especially when the plot celebrates alcoholism, women are graded on how they fill a girdle and resolves with a the kind of racial stereotyping that is far more shocking than any glimpse of stocking. Oh, I can see the eyes rolling and hear the cries of "political correctness gone mad". Anything Goes is a product of it's time, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't look at it with the sensibilities of our time.

Luckily, directors Andrew Hallsworth and Dean Bryant (whose direction  of MTCs recent Next to Normal was so beautiful) appreciate the issues and find a balance between homage, indulgence and satire that creates a hoot of a show that even the most jaded among us have to love.

They ham up the nostalgic glitz, remind us that things like celebrity-mad media never change, and let the audience and the cast have fun with the not-so-pc moments

And having a cast that deserve to run for a year doesn't hurt. Amanda Harrison's sassy Reno tops Ms Merman's, Todd McKenney's Lord Evelyn left even a vego like me wanting more ham, Christy Sullivan (Natalie in Next to Normal) shows that an ingenue called Hope can be more than a floaty dress,  and  Christie Whelan's (Erma),  Alex Rathgeber (Billy), Wayne Scott Kermond (Moonface), Anne Wood (Evangeline), John O'May (Elisha) and the whole ensemble give us the kick that we don't get from champagne.

The Production Company are the nearest thing we have to a time machine to take us back to old-school Broadway. The budgets are tight, but with people like Adam Gardnir creating gorgeous sets from nothing and a team willing to create with their hearts for the love a show, it's not wonder that Anything Goes is the rat's pyjamas.

This review was on AussieTheatre.com

Photo: Jeff Busby

 

Review: Next to Normal

Next to Normal
Melbourne Thearte Company
3 May 2011
Playhouse, the Arts Centre
to 28 May
www.mtc.com.au

It's been a while since a show left me in tears. With only one tissue, I wasn't prepared for the MTC's production of the Broadway hit Next to Normal.

Next to Normal is about Diana's trauma-induced depression, anxiety and delusion. It opens with her singing about death and being jealous of people in obituaries. Her family have suffered for years and are reaching the point where love isn't enough to cope, and she's meeting with a new doctor.

It took Tom Kitt (Music) and Brian Yorkey (book and lyrics) nearly a decade to create this exquisite work. There was extensive research and they workshopped, performed and rewrote it many times. When  the 2008 off-broadway production still wasn't completely grabbing their audiences, they re-wrote again, this time killing songs that had created the show.

It takes time and support and feedback, and more time and support to create work this good. If we had that kind of support in Australia and we didn't give up on shows after one run, we'd be producing work this good. The 2009 Broadway production of Next to Normal won Tony Awards (including Best Score) and the 2010 Pultitzer Prize for Drama.

A musical won the Pulitzer Prize! There was controversy, but anyone who has seen any production knows why it won.

Shakespeare brought us into the minds of his characters with the soliloquy. Great musical theatre writers (like Sondheim, and Boubill and Schönberg) use song. Kitt and Yorkey never let us passively (and comfortably) watch, but make us see and feel what it's like to be in the breaking hearts and souls of their characters, who are just like us. It's almost impossible to distance ourselves from this story.

Next to Normal is a remarkable piece, but with such sensitive material, which is so close to too many of us, and such a dark sense of humour ("Valium is my favourite colour"), it could be a disaster in the wrong hands. Fortunately it was given to Dean Bryant (director) and Matthew Frank (musical director). These two met studying Musical Theatre at WAPPA and have gone on to create works incuding Prodigal, Once We Lived Here and Virgins: A Musical Threesome. I didn't see any of them, but will not miss anything these two have a hand in creating again. They get musicals. They get this style of storytelling that soars when it uses emotion and the subconscious reactions that music evokes.

And their cast are perfect.  Melbourne-favourites Matt Hetherington and Bert LaBonte never disappoint.  As the teen characters,  Gareth Keegan, Christy Sullivan and Benjamin Hoetjes are three recent WAPPA graduates who testify that there really is no other place to study Musical Theatre in Australia. But the surprise is Kate Kendall as Diana. Better known for TV and non-musical stage work, she brings an emotional truth and understanding to her performance that you can almost forget that she's singing.

Next to Normal isn't a show to miss, especially if you're one of those people who doesn't "like" musicals. This one will show you how good they can and should be. It's a heartbreaking story about hurts that "never heal" and, for all it's hope and love, leaves you understanding why some people can't get out of bed each morning.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com

Photo by Jeff Busby