Global Creatures in association with Sydney Theatre Company
23 March 2019
Her Majesty's Theatre
to 16 June
murielsweddingthemusical.com
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| "Muriel's Wedding". Melbourne. Photo by Jeff Busby |
A new Australian musical. A phrase full of so much hope and an equal amount of fear; goodness, we've seen some duds. A musical adaption of a film. A phrase full of ... yep, we've seen them, too. Muriel's Wedding: The Musical is both and, as Muriel and Rhonda would say, it's fucking amazing, and, legit, one of the coolest shows I've seen.
And it's ours. It feels like us, looks like us, bloody sounds like us and might be the show that runs all over the world.
In 1994, PJ Hogan's film Muriel's Wedding was an unexpected hit. If you haven't seen it, you should because a lot of the love for this musical comes from knowing, loving and referencing the film. Future productions may be able to step away from the source, but not yet.
With Hogan adapting his film script and working closely with director Simon Phillips and all the collaborators, it's far from a stage version of the film. It updates the story – you know it – to today with sad and lonely Sunshine-coaster millennial Muriel being as obsessed with social media as she is with ABBA. It expands some characters, especially Betty (Muriel's mum) and Brice (Muriel's first pash) and changes enough to make it a story about now; although, it would be even cooler to lose the 1990's race jokes and have a few less fat jokes.
Most importantly, it takes the story off the subtle screen, where silence, close ups and subtext bring us into character's heads, and into a world that lets us in with song and theatricality. Here, ABBA are out of Muriel's imagination and in her life as guardian angels, who don't always know what's best for her; Brice climbs to the top of Sydney to send a text; and Betty can dance as she makes her heart breaking choice.
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| "Muriel's Wedding". Melbourne. Photo by Jeff Busby |
The first welcome into the world is Gabriela Tylesova's design. The stage is solid-block bright colours that let the action focus to a bedroom and expand to a city – the Sydney Harbour Bridge has never looked better on a stage. And it's framed with a proscenium of fuchsia-pink leaves and petals that could be tongues, scattered with mobile phones to share Insta pics.
While the stage is blocks of colour, the costumes are full of detail so intricate that the only the person who can see it all is the person wearing it. Each design – there are about 360 costumes – starts with character and immediately lets the audience know everything about them. You might not be able to see the detail of her unique shoes – her shoe designs! –, but you'll never be distracted because everyone is wearing scuffed black show shoes.
Every costume is perfectly a bit too much. Think 1980s Ken Done tea towels and 2010s Lisa Gorman dresses – but with much cooler detail and the colour and pattern turned up. The bridal frocks all have two, or 20, too many frills; the florals are a bit too floral; the boardies would look too much on an end-of-year team trip to Bali – even the 1970s ABBA jump suits are a bit too white. They are all magnificent.
The genius choice though was Kate Miller-Heidke (I loved her music for The Rabbits and let's not forget that she's the representing Australia in this year's Eurovision) and Keir Nuttall for the music and lyrics. (They are also partners in real life and their first baby was born during the workshop process).
Their music doesn't try to to sound like a musical. Here, music and songs don't tell the story, they take us into the hearts of the characters. In theatre, in life, in our showers and cars, we sing what we can't say, and in great musicals, every song brings us closer to the characters' truths. The Porpoise Spit girls sound like the commercial pop they love, Muriel is the heightened emotion of 80s ABBA without the succinctness of their lyrics, Nuttall describes Muriel's father Bill as sounding like a "Rolling Stones tribute act playing in the Twin Towns casino" – and he does! Because the songs start with character, it always feels natural when they sing and the music never pulls the show away from the story.
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| "Muriel's Wedding". Melbourne. Photo by Jeff Busby |
Throw in lyrics that are better than over hearing conversations on trains, ABBA songs by ABBA, Miller-Heidke bringing in extra for sopranos to shine, and the bonus of Andrew Hallsworth's choreography that's equally as school disco as it is slick, and, well, I'm happy that my current ear worm is a song called "Sydney".
There's plenty being written about the awesomeness of the cast and they are all spot on. With a mostly new cast from the original Sydney Theatre Company show, the production is open to personal interpretations. Our new Muriel (Natalie Abbott) and Rhonda (Stefanie Jones) are already so different from the original cast (the soundtrack is free on Spotify) that it's going to be easy to want to see every cast change over the years. Everyone is bonza, but highlights include Pippa Grandison (who was Porpoise Spit Nicole in the film) as Betty, and Christie Whelan Brown as wonderful queen bitch Tania.
Muriel's Wedding is spectacular but never relies on spectacle. It's as daggy as a backyard engagement party, but as complex as trying to describe the perfect pavlova. It's as Aussie as pineapple on pizza (the best), beetroot in a burger (also the best) and hot chips eaten at sunset at the beach with seagulls stalking you for left overs.
