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 : Psycho Beach Party

MIDSUMMA 2013
Psycho Beach Party
Little Ones Theatre and Theatre Works
11 January 2013
Theatre Works
to 19 January – but it's SOLD OUT
theatreworks.org.au

Hot diggity! If Psycho Beach Party isn't the most hip, groovy and neat-o hit of Midsumma, then I've got no idea what people like. Full of lust, longing and psychotic shaving, it proves that you don't have to be a queen to be camp or be gay to be queer.

There's songs by the B52s on a beach made of leopard print and shiny silvery-black steamers (Owen Phillips) that's filled with a super-hot cast of dream boats and gals dressed in leopard print and black (Eugyeene Teh). Do you need to know more?

Charles Busch has been playing women and looking damn fine in a frock since the 70s and been writing like plays the 80s off-Broadway hit Vampire Lesbians of Sodom. In 1987, he wrote (and starred in) Psycho Beach Party. It's like a 60s Annette/Gidget beach film with dreamboats and boyish girls who learn how to to surf and how to fill out a bikini, but with a Hitchcockish undertone (without the misogyny) and a bloody splash of a multiple personality psychodrama and drive-in slasher flick. It's a bit like if Sybil and Freddie stayed at the new Bates motel on Malibu beach, but gayer.

And there's no one better to re-imagine this American queer cultural-mash-up than director Stephen Nicolazzo and his company Little Ones Theatre. Its first season was at the Bondi Pavillion last year, but Melbourne has Theatre Works, even if St Kilda has never seen a surfer.

Nicolazzo models Psycho Beach Party as a parody that's not a spoof. It's non-stop hilarious, but it doesn't make fun of the absurd plot and outrageously stereotyped characters. Instead, it takes what we genuinely adore about about these genres and turns the volume up to magnificent, as it laughs at the dull squares who don't understand the fun – and reminds us how it's not about gender by letting drag heroine (Ash Flanders) perform without wig, padding or tuck. He does have a lovely hair clip though and a decolletage that lets him wear strapless gown without fear of side boob.

Mz Flanders is joined by a too-gorgeous selection from the new gen of local enfant terrifics: Genevieve Giuffre, Peter Paltos, Caitlin Adams, Kevin Kiernan Molloy, Zoe Boesen, Paul Blenheim, Tom Dent and Amanda McGregor and much of Psycho's magnificence comes from this cast who love every second the show, but never let that love get in the way of stiletto-sharp performances.

It finishes on Saturday 19; that's less than a week away and if you don't get a ticket ASAP, you'll be left like a wall flower who never took their sneakers off at the Sock Hop.

Photo by Sarah Walker

This was on AussieTheatre.com