Review: Gypsy

Gypsy
The Production Company
10 July 2013
State Theatre, Arts Centre Melbourne
to 14 July
theproductioncompany.com.au

Caroline O'Connor stars as Rose in Gypsy. Is there anything else you need to know! If you've seen Connor perform, you know you have to see her; if you haven't seen her, you've probably been told that you have to see her; if you have no idea who she is, have a google and you'll know you have to see her.

Caroline O'Connor is an old-style, belt it out with heart and guts super star and the State Theatre erupted for her last night.

Gypsy is the story of stage mother Rose, whose life is managing and creating the vaudeville act performed by her daughters Baby June and Louise. Abandoned by her own mother and three husbands, Rose holds on to what she loves most, refusing to marry the man who adores her (Herbie) and not noticing how much June wants to leave. When June abandons her family, Rose focuses on the less-talented Louise, finally convincing her to perform in a burlesque show. It's loosely based on the memoir of the 30s famous stripper Gypsy Rose Lee (called Louise).

Gypsy (Jule Styne, music; Arthur Laurents, book; Stephen Sondheim, lyrics) was first seen on Broadway from 1959 to 1961 with Ethel Merman as Rose. It was nominated for a pile of Tonys, but didn't win any. Revivals made up for this. Other famous Roses include Angela Lansbury, Tyne Daly, Bernadette Peters and Patti Lupone, and not to forget Rosalind Russell and Bette Midler in screen versions. Rose is the role that women of a certain age look forward to playing, written in a time when women of a certain age were loved and adored and written for.

O'Connor might have her name above the title, but the rest of the cast as just as super and starry. Matt Hetherington nearly grounds Rose as sensible and love-struck Herbie, Gemma-Ashley Kaplan brings guts to Baby June and Christina Tan transforms from downtrodden Louise to powerful Gypsy. And not to forget the scene-stealing cast of young performers, and Chloe Dallimore, Nicki Wendt and Ann Wood as the three strippers who show Louise that you gotta have a gimmick.

And the design team of Adam Gardnir (set), Tim Chappel (costume) and, Paul Jackson and Robert Cuddon (lights) create a stage that feels and looks as great as a multi-billion dollar show with a background of twinkling stars for the nostalgia-inspired back drops and the gorgeous, extra fun era-inspired costumes.

Now in their 15th year, The Production Company continue to produce the musicals that we'd never see from commercial or professional companies. With limited resources and rehearsal time, they give us the old-style shows we've only ever seen on film or ones that haven't been produced in Australia. They are more than concert versions, but less than a full production, but always made with a love of the work that makes them soar.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.

Photo by Belinda Strodder

Review: Flowerchildren, The Mamas and Papas Story

Flowerchildren: The Mamas and Papas Story
Magnormos
22 May 2013
The Comedy Theatre
flowerchildren.com.au
to 23 June

Magnormos's 2011 premiere of Flowerchildren: The Mamas and Papas Story sold out at Theatre Works, got rave reviews (here's mine) and made it onto favourite and award's lists. It's since been developed and has opened its first professional season at The Comedy Theatre. If it doesn't sell out, get rave reviews and awards, there's something wrong with the system because it's as close to perfect as music theatre can be.

The story spans 1965 to 68, the years that The Mamas and The Papas, an American folk rock quartet,  recorded and performed as a group, sold millions of records and ensured their place in music history. The music, mostly written by John Phillips, is still as memorable today and epitomises the sound of hippy California.

But it wasn't all flowers and free love. Peter Fitzpatrick wrote the (immaculately researched) book and has been working with Aaron Joyner (director, producer and musical arranger; and founder of Magnormos) since 2009 to develop the work. With its four narrators, it focuses behind the hits and public adoration, and the genius moment is making the storytelling about the songs; leaving it hard to ever hear some of them again without feeling the love, pain or bitterness that created them.

Joyner's arrangements weaves the music around the narrative, letting it to be heard as more than a final product, but the highlights are the recreations of their recorded sound. Music director Sophie Thomas creates a live sound that's got be as amazing as sitting on a bean bag with a huge pair of stereo headphones and a special cookie while listening to them for the first time. Their studio recordings with eight-part harmonies are created with four more singers who sing as ensemble characters and from backstage. I think they were more visible in the original version and I missed seeing how the four created a live eight-person sound.

It's naturally a much bigger show, with a new design and extra ensemble, but it hasn't lost any of its intimacy. So much that it feels like it's still finding out how to fill so much space – which they needn't worry about because the sound and the stories are huge and the cast make the group so real that its feels weird watching the real Mamas and Papas on YouTube.

Casey Donavan (Cass), Laura Fitzpatrick (Michelle), Matt Hetherington (John) and Dan Humphris (Denny) tell the four individual stories and the group's story like it's theirs. What makes this production so much more than a bio-show is performances that embrace all the atrocious behaviour, addiction and ability to hurt each other without losing the any of their character's heart. They let us see that everyone believed that were doing the best thing, even if it was obvious to everyone else that it wasn't.

And they can sing. Wow, can they sing. While they sound like the group, each brings enough of themselves to make it sound fresh. And, although it feels wrong to single out anyone in such a consistently sensational ensemble, gorgeous Casey Donavan makes sure that Cass Elliot hears and shares Casey's cheer for "Dream a Little Dream of Me".

If you don't know the music of The Mamas and The Papas, you will be in love with it before the interval. If you've loved them for years, discovering their story can hurt, but nothing takes away from that music. And it might be best to not google too hard to learn about composer John Phillips. He was a far from perfect man, but he created music that's outlived him and will take a long time to fade.

It's kind of odd that a small independent music theatre company from Melbourne has created such a perfect telling of such an American group, but it's one that's going to travel far from Melbourne. (Is somebody flying Michelle Phillips out to see it?) And if we can create such stunning music theatre in Australia, why can't some of the money that goes to re-creating American productions be spent on developing more work like this?

I'm also aware that this is a pricey ticket show and that there doesn't seem to be any concession priced tickets. Hopefully there will be deals and offers, because it would be more than a shame if people who have supported Magnormos in the past can't afford to see this and take everyone they know.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.

Reveiw: Promises, Promises

Promises, Promises
The Production Company
3 October 2012
The State Theatre, Arts Centre Melbourne
to 7 October
theproductioncompany.com.au

The Production Company finish their 2012 season with 1968's Promises, Promises and, for all its promise, it seemed to leave its audience perplexed. This is the first time I've been at Production Company opening night that didn't end with a standing ovation.

Promises, Promises opened on Broadway in 1968, the West End in 1969 and only came back to Broadway in 2010. Based on Billy Wilder's film The Apartment (written for Jack Lemmon and staring Shirley Maclaine and Fred MacMurray), it's a one-off collaboration between Burt Bacharach (music), Hal David (lyrics) and Neil Simon (book); names that should righty leave any theatre lover drooling.

Simon had four shows running on Broadway in 1966 (Sweet Charity, The Star-Spangled Girl, The Odd Couple, and Barefoot in the Park), and the book (the action is all in the text) is as witty and observant as any of his award-winning plays. Hal David's lyrics are fautlessly funny and still able to break hearts (the show's most famous for "I'll never fall in love again") and I don't believe anyone who says that they don't like Burt Bacharach. Many try and copy his sound, but no one sounds like Bacharach better than Bacharach, and Orchestra Victoria capture his distinct dissonance, ear-melting harmonies and the 60s brass and big orchestra sound that ensures that even the show's lesser numbers are wonderful.

Set in 1962, it's a story about young no one accountant Chuck Baxter who lets middle-aged executives use his bachelor pad to have sex with young women, based on the promises that he'll get a promotion. Meanwhile he's in love with fellow no one Fran Kubelik, not knowing that she's one of the women in his apartment.

The gorgeous design captures the time, the ensemble ensure that "Turky lurky time" brings the house down, Chelsea Plumley's Marge MacDougall is a comic highlight with "A fact can be a beautiful thing", but the night belongs to wonderful Matt Hetherington as Chuck Baxter. Dismissing those who have been before him (Lemmon, Jerry Orbach, Sean Hayes), his Chuck is impossible not to adore (even with some lyric hicoughs and a sound mix that sometimes lost him in the band) and Hetherington is the heart of this production.

Production Company favourite Marina Prior is Fran, the object of Baxter's love and a young woman who naively sees no option but to be treated like she's worthless. Sure Matt and Marina's aren't 20, but vocally Marina's voice is too full and emotionally she brings too much maturity to Fran, missing her lightness and frustrating innocence. I would have loved to have seen Marina play the older and far funnier Marge.

But casting isn't what's holding this production back.  Promises, Promises is a product of its time;  a time of amazing clothes and music, but a time of attitudes that we hope not to see anymore. In his 1996 memoir, Rewrites, Neil Simon described the "enormous temptations" of their out of town run and says, "We were in a pre-AIDS world where all you had to worry about was your conscience and your discretion." It's not hard to see that the attitudes on the stage were the attitudes of the time.

Choosing to present this story is already a choice to comment on these attitudes.  By making one of the young women a man, director Nadia Tass makes a clear statement that we are looking at this story with a contemporary perspective, but this tone and directorial voice is inconsistent and confusing.

It's story about a woman who believe's she's nothing because she's treated like nothing, but playing the executives as buffoons and their 'girls' as drunken idiots supports the idea that what they are doing is harmless fun. It's this contradicting attitude to the time and the characters that leaves the production feeling awkward and flat. Of course, theatre is not tv, but Mad Men is set at the same time in the same city and world, and presents the misogyny of the time without demeaning the women (or the men).  Jilted secretary Miss Olsen (Hester Van Der Vyver) grasps the tone perfectly – nearly as well as Mad Men's Miss Olsen – and more of this subtle tone would give the show the guts it's missing.

As Promises, Promises is a show that's rarely produced (despite its pedigree), it's a wonderful choice for the season and subscribers won't be disappointed. There are issues, but I still enjoyed it more than the raved-about Chess and The Producers. It's a piece that lets story and character lead and any Bacharach is better than no Bacharach.

This was on AussieTheatre.com

Review: Flowerchildren

Flowerchildren:the Mamas and Papas Story

Magnomos

Theatre Works

1 September 2011

to 10 September

www.magnormos.com/flowerchildren.htm

I don't think there's a seat left for Flowerchildren. It's worth ringing and trying for no-shows, because this mix of nostalgia, honesty and revelation is a show you won't forget.

I'm not a fan of the jukebox/tribute musicals, but working with the Magnormos team, writer Peter Fitzpatrick has taken all that he knows about great musicals (he's directed five Sondheim's) to create one that is loving, painful and wonderful.

I'm a product of the 60s, and have always loved The Mamas and Papas's music with those close harmonies that speak of love, but are underpinned with a melancholy that draws you deeply into the heart and truth of the song.

Their music is still glorious, but Flowerchildren reminds us that it was a product of many no-so-nice stories. Older John married teenage Michelle, Cass never got over her brief relationship with Denny, John never accepted Cass for her size, each had health-threatening addictions and Denny and Michelle has an affair. Underpinning their fame and sudden money, it was unhappiness, anger and drugs, that led Phillips to write some of their greatest hits.

The story is told in four parts, each narrated from point of view of one of the members, starting with Cass when she decided in join the group and ending with Michelle, who's the only member still alive. It also leaves their stories in the 60s and leaves Michelle to tell what she wants to about their deaths. Some of the urban myths are debunked and other more damaging accusations, particularly about John, are left for Oprah and the tabloids.

Flowerchildren succeeds where so many tribute pieces fail because the narrative is inseparable from the music and it uses the truth of their personal relationships. Phillips freely used his music to express his how he felt. In the early days, his "Words of Love" were for Michelle, "Creeque Alley's" "no one's getting fat except Mama Cass" still feels mean and the pain of Denny's "genius" mistake in "I saw her again" was recreated every performance to ensure that Denny remembered just how much he hurt John.

Working with the spot-on design (Christina Longan-Bell and Emma Kennedy), Aaron Joyner's direction captures the mood of the flower power, hippy movement of the late 60s.  It was a time of hope and new beginnings, but he doesn't let us see it with mass-produced fashion-conscious rose-coloured glasses.

Sophie Thomas's musical direction captures the unique sound of this group so well that it feels so close to seeing them live that it's easy to forget that we're not in San Francisco in 1967, and their recorded eight-part harmonies are re-created by using a mirror ensemble of four (Tim Carney, Jessica Featherby, Jack Feehan, Zuleika Khan).

And the cast couldn't be more perfect. Laura Fitzpatrick (Mama Michelle) brings the complexity that is so often missed in discussions of pretty Michelle, Matt Hetherington (Papa John) isn't scared of John's demons, Dan Humphris (Papa Denny) isn't scared of Denny's cowardice and Casey Donovan (Mama Cass) shows how Cass hid her pain, and masters Cass's dance style.

Flowerchildren will get another season. It's so good that it has to be seen more and must find it's way to the homeland of this group.

This review originally appeared on AussieThearte.com

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