AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN - THE MUSICAL

May 19th 2012 2:52 pm | Theatre | Review - By Bryce Hallett

AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN - THE MUSICAL. Lyric Theatre, May 18 - booking through to July 2012. Photos by Brian Geach: main pic - the company; right: Ben Mingay and Amanda Harrison.

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If ever there were a  popular film from the '80s which didn't naturally cry out to be adapted to the musical theatre stage it is surely the tough yet romantic An Officer and A Gentleman. Unlike movies such as Xanadu, Flashdance and Dirty Dancing, screenwriter Douglas Day Stewart's An Officer and A Gentleman lacks an innate musical rhythm, except for its  sentimental climax when the heroic Zack Mayo (Ben Mingay) plucks the downtrodden Paula (Amanda Harrison) from the factory floor for a rousing version of "Up Where We Belong".

That the signature song from the film is by far the most lyrical and memorable tune from the show makes one wonder how this thinly-plotted, largely unimaginative transformation got out of the workshop. The rock songs by composers and lyricists Ken Hirsch and Robin Lerner are mainly banal and not especially tuneful although the musical director (Dave Skelton) and the cast at least try to give them some grunt. The opening sequence is a pale imitation of Miss Saigon and its scenes of chaos, military machismo and sleaze but without the urgency and fervour that made it so passionate and engaging. The scene introduces the young, all-but-abandoned Zack - nicely played and sung by George Cartwright on opening night - and clumsily attempts to establish the aspirational tone of the piece through the harsh-sounding, pithy songs "A Man Is", "Tough Town" and "I'm Gonna Fly".

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WHEN DAD MARRIED FURY

May 15th 2012 11:06 pm | Theatre | Review - By Diana Simmonds

WHEN DAD MARRIED FURY, Ensemble Theatre, 9 May-16 June 2012. Season extension: Theatre Royal: 22 & 23 June. Photos by Steve Lunam: Nick Tate, Cheree Cassidy and Lorraine Bayly; right: Cheree Cassidy.

How do you accumulate $100 million without breaking a sweat? Apparently you advise other people where to invest their hard-earned cash while not committing any of your own. That's what Alan (Nick Tate) has done. And he's been extra successful because, while reaping the rewards of giving seemingly excellent advice in boom times, he also managed to pull a swifty when the markets tanked in 2009. He actually made some extra $$$ while all around, investors were losing everything and more in the worst financial crash since the Depression. Sound familiar?

David Williamson, with Ensemble's director Sandra Bates, has been making comedy and comment out of the events of the moment for decades and this time he's turned his attention to the recent global financial crisis and the very peculiar twists and turns of contemporary American politics and religion.

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reasons to be pretty

May 12th 2012 5:19 pm | Theatre | Review - By Diana Simmonds

REASONS TO BE PRETTY, Slip of the Tongue and Darlinghurst Theatre Company at Darlinghurst Theatre, May 8-June 3, 2012. Photos: Lucy Maunder (above); Andrew Henry and Julia Grace (right) Blueprint Studios.

The obsession with female physical beauty reached its current zenith (or nadir, depending on your point of view) on Tuesday evening with the winner of The Biggest Loser on TV and the opening night of Neil LaBute's reasons to be pretty in Darlinghurst. As the third element of a loose trilogy exploring what LaBute sees as society's morbid preoccupation with appearance, the play follows The Shape of Things and Fat Pig, both of which were staged by the Sydney Theatre Company. 

This one escaped and has been grabbed by Slip of the Tongue, an independent company formed by director James Beach and actor Andrew Henry with the express intent of presenting the play. Apparently Henry discovered it while studying with Steppenwolf in Chicago.

It opens with a paint-peeling, window-shattering screaming row between a young couple that would make Martha and George sit up and take notice. Steph (Julia Grace) and Greg (Andrew Henry), a pairing of four years' standing, implode before our very eyes over a seemingly innocuous remark by him that shatters her typically fragile sense of self. While lollygagging with his best buddy in a break at their factory, he's overheard saying that Steph - rather than being beautiful - has a "regular" face. Everything that happens after that flows - or crashes - from that one word.

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FOOD

May 8th 2012 6:12 pm | Theatre | Review - By Diana Simmonds

FOOD, Force Majeure and Belvoir at Belvoir Downstairs, April 26-extended to May 27, 2011. Photos by Heidrun Lohr: Emma Jackson, Fayssal Bazzi and Kate Box.

At first thought, the combination of Kate Champion and Steve Rodgers is an odd one. Champion is the rigorous creative mind at the heart of the highly successful theatre-dance company Force Majeure; while Rodgers is a popular larrikin actor and a playwright whose third work of substance this is. But as any good cook knows, sweet and sour, hot and salty, smooth and crunchy are actually the combinations that fulfil the hopes and dreams of most hungry people. And if you're hungry for an often startling and ultimately scrumptious night in the theatre - this is the dish for you.

Enough with the cooking references. Food is a remarkable new work. At 90 minutes non-stop, it swings along playfully, initially disguising its darker purpose until the unsuspecting viewer is sucked in by the jokey facade. The premise is simple: Elma (Kate Box) toils away in the kitchen of the family roadside takeaway cafe, churning out Chiko Rolls, chips and more chips for an indifferent yet hungry clientele. She's done it dutifully since her mother's death, while her younger sister Nancy (Emma Jackson) flitted off to better things. Now Nancy's returned, reluctantly, to work as the waitress but she has ideas. 

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MACBETH

May 3rd 2012 10:26 pm | Theatre | Review - By Diana Simmonds

MACBETH, Bell Shakespeare Company at the Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House April 12-May 20, 2011 then touring. Photos by Rush: Dan Spielman and Kate Mulvany, main pic; Lizzie Schebesta (right).

Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's most consistently popular plays with audiences and this production, directed by Peter Evans, follows perilously soon after Bell Shakespeare's 2007 version. Comparisons are odious, as Dogberry very nearly said, but it's "perilous" because the '07 production was wonderfully directed by John Bell, and starred a fascinating, memorable Linda Cropper as Lady Mac. 

Evans, with his dramaturg-collaborator and star Kate Mulvany may not have had it somewhere in the back of their minds; but some Bell regulars would have. So how to approach the monster and put a fresh spin on it (and her)? They did it, however, and Lady Macbeth in this production is as close to a scene-stealing star as she is ever likely to be.

In an insightful piece written for the Sydney Morning Herald, Mulvany wrote of her role, "When people speak of Lady M, most reply, 'She's a villain who convinces her husband to kill.' But she's more than that, surely. Does she have to be a villain? Did her husband really need much convincing?…" Mulvany describes having an epiphany during rehearsals: "Could Lady Macbeth be grieving?"

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the story of mary maclane by herself

April 19th 2012 12:42 pm | Theatre | Review - By Diana Simmonds

THE STORY OF MARY MACLANE BY HERSELF, Griffin Theatre Company at the SBW Stables Theatre; created by Ride On Theatre, presented in association with Malthouse Theatre, Merrigong Theatre Company and Performing Lines; 4 April-12 May; Illawarra PAC May 15-19, 2012. Photos by Brett Boardman: Andy Baylor (bass), Dan Witton (violin), Tim Rogers and Bojana Novakovic.

Writer and actor Bojana Novakovic, with her Ride On Theatre partner and director Tanya Goldberg, have concocted a most amazing entertainment from the original writings of Mary MacLane. Novakovic is accompanied and assisted in this endeavour by a trio of musicians: Tim Rogers, Andy Baylor and Dan Witton. And the whole is fashioned in the style of a twisted red velvet and tawdry gilt music hall melodrama with Miss MacLane as free as a bird in her satin undies, while the fellas are got up in bowlers, stripy weskits, strangling neck ties and those elasticated metal shirt sleeve restraints favoured by riverboat gamblers. (Designer Anna Cordingley, lighting by Hartley TA Kemp, sound: Russell Goldsmith.)

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