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.

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: Annie

Annie
John Frost, Power Arts, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Two Left Feet
1 June 2012
Regent Theatre
to 12 August
anniethemusical.com.au

Annie was the first big show I saw. It was the original Australian production (yes, the summer of 78/79) at the Festival Centre in Adelaide and it was the most incredible thing I'd ever seen. It was better than The Aristocats film and even better than Disney on Ice!  And it had kids in it. It was aspirational and my cousins and I sang every bit we could remember from it. (Thanks Gran for taking us.) I so wanted to be an orphan, but I really wanted to be Annie*. It's Annie's fault that I'm here today.

Annie was THE show of 1978 in Australia. The songs were played on the radio, there were stories in every newspaper about the casting and finding the dogs at the pound. We knew the names of the local Annies and orphans. It was bigger than The Voice.

Being a teenager, I didn't see the film (naff), missed the 2000 revival (naff!) and so nearly didn't see the 2012 production because I was scared that my inner-10-year-old would have her memories of such a perfect experience shattered.

Annie is naff. Its a schmaltzy, feel-good story about an perky orphan showing a billionaire the importance of being perky and convincing the new US-depression-time President that the sun will come out tomorrow.  It's more twee than Lolcats,  has the worst wig in the history of all theatre (even in the 70s the curly red perm looked ridiculous) and if it were written today, there'd be an extra scene to help the Act 2 resolution where she runs away, is attacked on the streets and saved by Sandy the dog.

So the only way to tell this story and make it more than laughable ironic nostalgia is to make it as perfect as possible and to tell the story with love. And this is what director Karen Johnson Mortimer has done.

It starts with an exquisite design (Kenneth Foy) that incorporates projections of 1930s New York to bring us into its world. We begin in the grey and white film world of orphanage poverty and colour is added until we're dancing in the lavish world of hope, love and wealth.

The first cast on stage are the seven little Australian orphans and Annie (Hattie Hook, we adored you) singing "Maybe" and "Hard Knock Life". This is make or break it time and this young cast make it. Bring in the Nancye Hayes as nasty Miss Hanniagn (who was the original Lily and company director of the 2000 revival) and there's no doubt that this is an Annie as good as any of us remember.

The cast can't be faulted.  Julie Goodwin (not the Masterchef winner) as Grace, Todd McKenney as Rooster, Chloe Dallimore as Lily, Anthony Warlow returning from 2000 as Daddy Warbucks and one of the best ensembles I've seen tell this story like it's their own. It's not just talent and experience (although if you can't dance like Todd, you don't deserve to be on a musical theatre stage); it's being totally with your character (no matter how small) for every moment you're on the stage. We're not in the audience to see performers show off; we're there to see a story and have to believe in the characters on the stage.

If you've never seen Annie, you may not like it as a grown up. I sat next to a confused 20-something couple on a date: the only way this is a date show is if your hoping to get knocked up that night. But there were lots of children. Children who didn't utter a word during the show (anyone been to a movie where kids shut up?), children who sat there as entranced as I've ever seen anyone in a theatre. A little girl near me was crying in Act 2 when it seems like Annie may have to go away with her fake parents.

This is going to be as defining theatre/story moment for many of these children, so please don't hesitate to introduce any pre-teens you know to theatre with Annie. As a commercial show it is expensive (and even I was nearly tempted by an Annie key ring at the merchandise stand), which leaves so many people unable to see it. I'm not going to debate the cost of putting on these shows, but producers, you're very smart people, so there must be a way to open up seats to kids and families who would otherwise never have a chance to see Annie. Daddy Warbucks would find a way.

We've seen some seriously dull musical revivals in recent years. These shows have ruined memories of great shows and made first timers wonder what the fuss was about. Revivals have to be as great as this Annie. They have to be better than what came before. Cutting cost corners on development and rehearsal or talent and spectacle only leads to empty seats and reviewers writing things that make you upset.

Annie is as perfect as a production of Annie can be. Filled with heart and talent, it reminded me why I fell in love with musical theatre all those years ago.

I never got to be THAT Annie, despite my Grandpa never calling me anything else, but I showed off on many stages in my teens, have adopted pets from the street and had red curly hair for many years. But I haven't sat on a billionaire's lap and called him Daddy...yet.

* until I wanted to be Sandy (from Grease, not the dog), then Janet from Rocky Horror.

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com

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