Book, Music and
Lyrics by Amity Dry
Directed by David
Lampard
Presented by Poplam Productions
Q Theatre, Queanbeyan
to 27 September 2015
Review by Len Power
26 September 2015
‘Mother, Wife and the Complicated Life’ is one of those
shows where you go along and recognize yourself as one or all of the characters
onstage. It’s about four women friends –
one single and pregnant, one married with three young children, one about to
get married and one in a troubled marriage.
Amity Dry, who wrote the book, music and lyrics, also performs
one of the girls in the show. The
performances of all four women are excellent.
They sing well and harmonise beautifully where required. The book gives them all meaty characters to
play and they are all convincing and appealing actors.
The attractive set has been designed to be able to represent
various settings easily. The lighting
plot enhances the set very nicely. There
was no program, so it’s not possible to mention who was responsible for these
aspects.
David Lampard has directed the show very well, keeping it
moving at a good pace with smooth transitions between scenes.
I was not impressed by the music, however. It’s a stream of consciousness type of score,
so there are no standout songs. About
halfway through the first act, every song started to sound the same. In addition, the show is too long for what it
is. It had made its point by interval
and would have been more effective with about 30 minutes cut out and played
without an interval.
