With Nancye Hayes and Todd McKenney. Devised by Peter J Adams. Directed by Jason Langley. The
Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre. May 21-22.
A bit of a whirlwind visit, this,
but those lucky enough to catch Nancye Hayes and Todd McKenney in full
anecdotal flight were clearly delighted by these two rare performers.
Quite a few years ago they teamed
up for a lovely two hander called Six
Dance Lessons in Six Weeks, about a rich older woman who takes dance
lessons from a younger instructor. Now, off the leash of a scripted play (but
in a piece with its own disciplines), they spend a deeply rich couple of hours
mining their own careers and memories, even stopping to field some audience
questions.
McKenney is long legged and funny
and still a dancing whirlwind when he wants to be. The Boy From Oz, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and, most
chillingly, the MC from Cabaret are all revisited as is his long stint as a
ruthless judge on channel 7’s Dancing with the Stars.
Hayes, with a far longer resume, ranges from her first
starring show, Sweet Charity along an award winning time line that includes My
Fair Lady, Annie, Guys and Dolls, Sweeney Todd…and having the Hayes Theatre
named after her. A short snatch of Sally Bowles is a revelatory reminder that the
both Sally and the Elsie whose life and death she sings about are English. The
language and the characters of the two women are immediately vivid and
poignant.
A screen upstage enables snippets from the past and a
generous selection of seats allows the occasional sit down segment. But mostly
there’s no rest for these wicked performers and the audience loves that.
As do I, growing up with a father
who was steering a follow spot in Sydney for J. C Williamson (and the Tivoli
and the Royal) at the time Hayes was in her first professional shows.
Appropriate, too, that the smooth lighting is by designer Trudy Dalgleish who
was one of our first students out of Drama at Canberra’s Phillip College in the
1970s. Bosom Buddies is part of the passing on of a theatrical inheritance.
Hayes and McKenney put on a
splendid show, steeped in the love and language of dance and song and musicals.
More, please!
Alanna Maclean
