Review: Happy People in concert

Happy People in concert

18 October 2014

Chapel off Chapel

to 19 October

Photo by James Terry

Melbourne had the first look at Matthew Lee Robinson's musical Happy People on the weekend.

Its first workshop performance was in Melbourne in 2010 and since then Robinson, a WAPPA graduate, received a Churchill Fellowship to go to the USA to study composition, lyric and book writing under the mentorship of Stephen Schwartz – who wrote Wicked. With more development in the US and dramaturgical input by Schwartz, Happy People is ready to come home.

Inspired by the Australian children's tv program Hi-5, it's about an American kids-tv foursome, the man inside their elephant friend, and their manager. They've been smiling and wearing bright colours for ten years and the cracks are beginning to show. Sunny (Sun Park, who was in Hi-5) and Bobby (Bobby Fox) were married but can barely be in the same room as each other;  Benny (Tom Sharah) is auditioning for a boy band; Sally (Gretel Scarlett) stuck at 25 and isn't keep to turn 30; while Jeff (Bert LaBonté) has had enough of being an elephant, is in love with Sally and is secretly developing his own show with Sunny and hoping for manager (Robyn Arthur) to support them. Everyone's had enough of being happy, until their final tour is announced.

Directed by Chris Parker, the concert version shows that Happy People needs to get onto a stage (with this cast, please) to work out the final kinks. The book feels like it needs some Act 2 complications to raise the stakes and really threaten the relationships, but it's hard to tell when the action's so condensed.

Otherwise, it's ready to go with music that's asking to be sung along to, witty lyrics and a story's that gets behind the endless smiles of kids tv. Let's just hope that we get to see it in Australia (maybe with some Australian content) before the US grabs it and makes us wait.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.

Review: Grease

Grease
John Frost et al
5 January 2013
Her Majesty's Theatre
to 16 March
greaseistheword.com.au

When I was 10, Grease was my word. I knew the film soundtrack album inside out before I saw the film (at the cinema), my school-friend group called ourselves the Pink Ladies and I still have a crush on John Travolta. Sitting with other 40-something woman with similar memories, the enthusiasm of nostalgia did a lot to up our enjoyment.

First seen in the UK, this production, with its shiny new Australian cast, has been to Brisbane and Sydney on its way to Melbourne.

Touring has left it as slick as Danny's quiff and as tight as Sandy's black cat suit, and the cast seem to love every moment.

With the costumes that joyfully exaggerate the 50s style, a design of posters from the 50s and lots of fluro lights, and an onstage band who are having as much fun as the cast, there's so much that should make this Grease zoom.

But something's missing. The show coasts and doesn't pick up after its audience-sing-along opening with Auntie Val and the fabulousness of the opening and "Summer Loving".

The direction feels like it jumps from concert-perfect number to number, losing the story and dumping the emotion along the way. Grease isn't a tear-jerking Sondheim, but it is a story about teenage love, the pressure to fit in and the ultimate triumph of friendship. There are reasons that this show, created in the 1970s, resonates so much with fans and to tone down its grit and conflict breaks the heart of Grease.

As in many bought-in productions, the terrific cast don't seem to be allowed to bring themselves or too much guts to their roles. Lucy Maunder is the exception as Rizzo and the supporting Pink Ladies and T-Birds each shine in their solo numbers, but no one is unforgettable and Danny (Rob Mills) and Sandy (Gretel Scarlett) don't seem to actually fancy each other.

And there's the odd need for celebrity guest stars in commercial shows. (Does it really sell more tickets?) Val Lehman as Miss Lynch is a hoot, for those who get the Prisoner jokes; Todd McKenny enjoys himself a bit too much as Teen Angel, with Boy from Oz jokes; no one knows what Anthony Callea is doing for his one-song appearance as Johnny Casino; and Bert Newton as the young, sexually-irresistible DJ Vince Fontaine is so ridiculous that its absurdity almost works. But, as with most of the show, it was always Val, Todd, Anthony and Bert, never characters.

This Grease is a celebration of the memories and nostalgia of Grease rather than a production to remember or one to define it for a new audience.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.