She Loves Me

Therry Dramatic Society. Arts Theatre. 6 June 2014

There have been so many good musicals on in the last year that I was hoping this one would be a stinker so I could once again show off my acerbic wit and biting satire.  How disappointed I was to instead be in the presence of perhaps the most delightful musical of them all.

She Loves Me has at its heart yearning and unrequited love, and all the accidents and misfortune that go with it. 

We join the service staff of a quaint and charming parfumerie of 1930s European vintage as they greet each other in the early morning for another day at work.  The musical is based on Miklos Laszlo's play set in his own time in his native Budapest.  The play has inspired three movies - including 1998's You've Got Mail - and this 1960s Broadway musical by Joe Masteroff, Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock which you must see at the Arts Theatre.

A young woman sings her way into a job in the cozy shop much to the chagrin of the manager.  It turns out they have been corresponding anonymously for some time, and how they twig onto that is the main business of the narrative.

I had a smile on my dial from start to finish.  Did anyone see Kneehigh Theatre's Brief Encounter last year?  She Loves Me has all the quirkiness, kindness, sadness, magic and love of that superb professional production.  Musical Director Martin Cheney and his orchestra handled the sharp changes in style with alacrity - from Hungarian waltz to Bolero.  The unexpected was expected.  Director Patsy Thomas perfectly cast the show and with choreographer Madeline Edwards had the whole thing moving beautifully.  It was enchanting, captivating and exquisite.

The entire cast was evenly strong in all of voice, movement and realisation of character.  Lauren Potter, as one of the correspondents, and Sarah Nagy, involved in a misjudged love subplot, exuded incredibly vivacious and nuanced personae, and sang me into another world.  I just loved them both.  James Reed as the manager and co-respondent needed to demonstrate subtle, yet open emotional turmoil, which he did with clarity.  The busy Buddy Dawson was once again awesome, this time as a cad.  His dancing and vocals skills were shining and his unique use of speaking voice was masterful.  Tim Taylor as the eldest employee easily engendered compassion and his musical number was quite different.  John Greene made Mr Maraczek a character easy to empathise with.  Andrew Crayford dangerously could steal every scene he is in and Mitchell Smith as the young and ambitious delivery boy projected a fetching optimism.  Buddy Dawson's exit dance scene with a cane was a highlight.  Potter's and Reed's ice cream scene with all that business in the tiny bedroom was a scream, and Nagy's comic vignettes were terrific.  All the other parts were performed to a comic, movement and musical T.  Bravo to you all!

And the costumes!  My word.  Chief costumier Gilian Cordell and her crew have a show to really be proud of.  The '30s frocks and coats, and Mr Maraczek's and Kodaly the cad's suits were absolutely impeccable.  Each and every shopper was dressed for the high street.  Norman Caddick's and Patsy Thomas's parfumerie was such a detailed and functional facsimile that I wanted to shop there.

As for the director and for actors, the job is to find the humour, find the love and find the conflict in each and every scene.  She Loves Me has done it for me, with lyricism and debonair flare.  Double Bravo!     

David Grybowski

When: 5 to 14 June
Where: Arts Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au

Kim Smith: Nova Noir

Adelaide Cabaret Festival. Banquet room, Adelaide Festival Theatre. 6 June 2014.

Kim Smith is an award-winning Australian cabaret performer and his latest show ‘Nova noir’ is a hit.

Dressed in a fitting tailored white shirt, drawn tightly over his broad shoulders, and high waisted butt-hugging trousers finished off with an exaggerated belt and braces, Smith is the very image of the Weimar era.  His face is carefully made-up and his hair distinctly parted and slicked back with lightly glittered wax.  He oozes androgynous sex appeal, he is narcissistic and you cannot bear to look away.  He draws you in.

Smith knows how to tell a story, and he does it with the power of his voice, his steely gaze and his striking posturing.  His song selection – ranging from Kurt Weill to Don Black to Sonny Bono – is carefully sequenced and bound together with a witty narrative that explores tolerance and the trials and joys of love.  

Smith has a strong baritone/light-tenor voice that he pitches accurately and sustains pure tones with imperceptible tremolo.  It is very easy to listen to, and he chooses songs carefully to suit his register.  The sound engineers tamed the unforgiving acoustic of the Banquet Room so that Smith’s voice could reign supreme.  He was accompanied by an excellent four-piece band masterfully led by Music Director/ Accordonist Benjamin Ickies.

Kim Smith is a consummate and witty performer, and Nova Noir is world class cabaret.

Kym Clayton

When: 6 to 7 June
Where: The Banquet Room
Bookings: bass.net.au

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Price Check - A New Musical

Cabaret Fringe Festival. La Boehme. 1 June 2014

One should never review a work in progress. So this is not a review. It is reflections.

Price Check is in its second incarnation - being aired as a reading for the Cabaret Fringe Festival.

Is it on its way to being "the great Australian musical"?
Maybe.

Certainly it is one of the treats of the CabFringe, the truly intimate arts experience of being part of a work in development.

As the rain drizzled and dripped outside, the privileged audiences crammed into La Boehme to share what one could describe as a thrill of skill, courage and optimism. If playwriting is the hardest of the literary arts, then musicals are the hardest of the genres in which to score a win.  The fails are many.

The idea of a musical about the prosaicism of life in the supermarket is daring - but Sean Weatherly has done deep research on the subject with no less than 14 years in dairy/frozen departments as he supported his way through university and into an entertainment career.

With playwright Cerise de Gelder pitching in on lyrics and libretto, Weatherly has composed a 15-song strong musical about Narelle, the veteran checkout chick, Mr Butler, the mean-spirited store manager, Zayeeb, the clever Indian who loves working in the fruit and veg department plus David, the supermarket stacker with a university arts degree and a young family to support.

Zayeeb's arrival on the scene is catalyst for changes in dynamics among the staff, spurring a little frisson of romance and some challenges of loyalty and ethics. Their world of customers is represented by just one garrulous little old Jewish lady who is a very regular and demanding shopper and a bit of a busy-body.

Weatherly has assembled a fabulous cast of professionals to bring this venture to life, not the least of them being Michael Fuller as director and Peter Johns on piano.

The fabulous Jacqy Philips plays old Mrs Zimmerman, heavily accented and amusingly needy.  She gets to sing one song, which is the most difficult song in the show, one which perhaps still needs revision.

Catherine Campbell assumes a veil of utter jadedness as Narelle, the long-term check-out chick. She gives great voice to the theme song, ‘Price Check’, which is catchy enough to have one singing it long after leaving the performance.  Campbell not only has a wonderful vocal range but is also an expressive actor so, even in the artifice of a reading, she brings a depth of emotion to her character. She is quite a strength in this presentation. Then again, so is Don Bridges as the small-minded boss and Fahad Farooque is utterly adorable as the very peculiar fruit and veggie fellow. He's the folly character, played up as an Indian cliche and even a song with a Bollywood bent. He's brings some comic banter about language and a little edge on racism which add further layers to the script.

Weatherly has fleshed out the characters quite effectively. Mr Butler has a secret life as a ballroom dancer while Narelle is not a loser but a victim of life. Weatherly plays David who one assumes to be the autobiographical link. He's something of an anti-hero who represents the too-common modern-day predicament of uni grads who get stuck with banal jobs. There's a deep frustration under the skin and Weatherly brings it forth. He is an immensely personable performer and a voice which is a pleasure to the ear, so he is no hardship starring in his own show. One hopes, when it hits the big time, that he will continue to do so along with the rest of this terrific reading cast.

And the show is coming on nicely. The performers, who sit on chairs on the stage when not doing their bits, interject during the scene changes and explain where dance routines are planned when the show gets to full production. At this point, it is one long first act and, after interval, a shorter second act.

The music is pleasant and, for the most part, not too Sondheim tricky for the singing. It swings along as an easy modern musical with the proper range of light and dark. The characters each have a special song. There are some big songs. There's a bit of philosophy, a bit of humour, a touch of love, and even a voyage-of-the-damned song when David contemplates working the Night Fill shift. Who would have thought there were so many dimensions to life behind the scenes in the supermarket?

What it needs is yet more blue pencil, a bit more nip and tuck. Some of the songs have so many verses that they just get tired. There could be a tad more toe tap, too.

It's a great concept for a musical. Weatherly hits the nerve for universality. Who doesn't come across world-weary checkout chicks? Who hasn't asked an aisle stacker for help? Who doesn't get peeved when there are too many Home Brands on the shelves? The supermarket is pretty much the navel of the consumer world.

So, Mr Weatherly, here's one shopper who'll be ready to join the queue to check out your show when it's up on the big stage.

Samela Harris

When: Closed
Where: La Boehme
Bookings: Closed

Calamity Jane (A Musical Western)

Marie Clark Musical Theatre Company. The Arts Theatre. 28 May 2014

There actually was a Calamity Jane who actually lived in Deadwood, South Dakota, in 1876.  She palled around with and eventually married Wild Bill Hickok in a drunken fit.  And as Wild Bill says about Calam (as she's called in the show), there is a lot of fantasticatin' about her wild west life, but if half of it were true, she was an exceptional gal in a man's world.

Calamity Jane (A Musical Western) is the 1961 adaptation of the 1953 Hollywood movie.  I can't see that it won any awards, but don't let that throw you off your Palomino, it's a good night out.

At the opening, a cowboy milling around with others outside the Golden Garter Saloon announces that "the stage is here."  Like I didn't know where the stage was, and I was in the third row.  Oh, he meant the stage coach!  D'oh!  This revelation is followed by one of many vigorous, melodic country hoedown numbers full of bright costumes and happy faces, swishing frocks and boisterous interaction amongst the supernumeraries.

There is a comic story about a woman that Lucille Ball might have modelled Lucy Ricardo after, a love quadrangle, and another tale of self-realisation or maybe conformity or gender, take your pick.  There are a lot of anachronisms to play with in the '50s script, and director Ben Stefanoff might have explored them more.  For example, Tegan Gully's Calamity sat somewhere between character and caricature with a shade of corn in her cowpoke.  Nonetheless, Calam was vivacious and complex.  But why was her side piece in front like a codpiece - looked weird.  

Doug Phillips's Francis Fryer's I-can-show-you dance certainly tested his ability and determination, and wound up sort of cute.  The best voice in the house was Andrew Crispe's Wild Bill Hickok.  He possesses a rare and clear resonance that you could just listen to for hours.  Bravo!  His Wild Bill was a necessary cool and composed foil to Calam's hyperactivity and bravado.  There love duet was warm hearted.  Leah Potter did a poor impersonation of Adelaide Adams (I loved hearing the word Adelaide sung in a song) but a great representation of a show girl.  The newbies in the chorus were augmented by sharp performers who otherwise do lead parts, like Tanya Grabis and Buddy Dawson.    

Deadwood's Golden Garter Saloon was the plainest saloon this side of the Black Hills, and the other side, too.  And Calam's cabin ain't much better - log chinking sat uncomfortably next to a rendered fire surround with scroll shelf brackets.  The only decent set was the saloon exterior and we only saw that for five minutes (set design - Ben Stefanoff and Rodney Bates).  Choreographer Rachel Dow got everyone with their best foot forward and arranged some rousing show numbers.  Kristin Stefanoff's Calamity Jane Orchestra was gallop apace right to the finish.   

In a musical, it's the music - I loved the big voices and melodies, the big band sound, and the liveliness of this energetic and happy production.  So saddle up your pardner and mosey on into The Arts Theatre for a rootin' tootin' hoot nanny of a musical.

David Grybowski

When: 23 to 31 may
Where: The Arts Theatre
Bookings: trybooking.com