Kurt Phelan (Johnny Castles) Kirby Burgess (Baby) |
Lyric
Theatre Sydney
3rd
December until 8th February 2015.
Reviewed
by Bill Stephens
Having been at the world premiere of “Dirty
Dancing” in Sydney’s Theatre Royal in 2004, it was interesting to be able to
re-connect with this show ten years later at the Australian premiere of this brand
new production.
Despite
a cool reception from local critics at the time, the stage version, which
starred Kym Valentine and Josef Brown, proved popular with audiences, and after
the Sydney season, toured Australia and New Zealand for eighteen months before
moving on to a sell-out season in Hamburg, Germany.
When the
2006 London season secured a West End record of eleven million pounds in
advance bookings, the show became something of a phenomenon. While the critics
continue to be mystified by its success, audiences flock to see “Dirty Dancing”
where-ever it is staged, and productions
of it have continued to tour
internationally ever since.
Kurt Phelan and the Dirty Dancing ensemble |
This
slick new production, crisply directed by James Powell, with ingenious new set
designs by Stephen Brinson Ellis which make extensive use of pretty video projections
to accomplish seamless transitions and reproduce key scenes from the film,
clearly illustrates why this show has remained so popular.
An
additional 20 scenes have been added by its creator, Eleanor Bergstein, who
also wrote the movie, making the stage show an even more slavishly faithful
re-telling of the hugely popular 1987 film. Each scene from the movie is carefully
reproduced; every line and every song appears to have been retained, allowing
the audience to relive the story of a teenage girl’s relationship with a dance
instructor while on summer vacation with her family exactly as they remember it
from the movie.
Kirby Burgess (Baby) Kurt Phelan (Johnny Castles) |
Kirby
Burgess is endearing and engaging in the pivotal role of Frances “Baby”
Houseman. Her accomplished transition from awkward teenager to skilled dirty
dancer is both engaging and convincing. (Perhaps not so, in the scene when she
goes swimming and her hair doesn’t get wet).
Curiously,
none of the songs advance the storytelling. They simply set the mood, or
provide background for the various scenes. None of the leading characters get
to sing, but charismatic young tenor, Mark Vincent and Anna Freeland, as staff
members in the holiday camp, impress in a succession of familiar well-known
songs which accompany the action.
Reprising
the role she created in the original production, Nadia Coote remains a
stand-out as the dance teacher, Penny Johnson. Her dancing is sensational and
she commands the stage in all her scenes. Teagan Wouters as Baby’s envious
older sister also scores with her funny “Hula” audition turn. The rest of the
cast enthusiastically portray a variety of stereotypical characters who inhabit
the holiday camp as the familiar story unfolds.
Kurt Phelan (Johnny Castles) Kirby Burgess (Baby) Nadia Coote (Penny Johnson) |
Even if the
second act bogs down a little in the minutia of the storytelling, and the
fascination with the colourful videoed scenery begins to wane, the audience
seemed happily engrossed, laughed and applauded every familiar line, until the
inevitable moment when Johnny Castle held Baby aloft in that familiar pose and
the theatre erupted into a standing ovation, you didn’t need to be rocket
scientist to tell (sorry, can’t resist) they had had the time of their lives.