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| "Pigalle" in the Magic Mirrors Spiegletent - 2019 Sydney Festival |
Produced by Peter Rix - Directed by Craig Ilott
Musical Direction by Joe Accaria - Choreographed by
Lucas Newland
Wardrobe designed by James Browne - Lighting designed
by Matt Marshall.
Magic Mirrors Spiegletent – Hyde Park – 8 – 27th
January
Performance on 12th January 2019 reviewed
by Bill Stephens
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| Marcia Hines in "Pigalle" |
Disco Circus Fusion, especially the Spiegletent
variety, has become a staple at festivals around Australia. Director Craig Ilot
has mastered the genre with a succession of boundary pushing, crowd-pleasing
productions which include the mesmerizing “Smoke & Mirrors” and “Velvet”. “Pigalle” is a variation on both these shows,
and while highly entertaining, lacks the originality of concept which made
these shows memorable.
Ilot has assembled a first class cast of singers,
dancers and acrobats, costumed them in eye-popping costumes, added brilliant
lighting design, masses of mirror balls, head-banging disco music, obligatory fog,
some weird characters to provide mystery, and woven them into a clever but strangely
confusing format which reflected little of the Parisian ambiance suggested by
the title, “Pigalle”.
As the audience entered the magnificent Magic Mirrors
Spiegletent and scuffled for the best seats, it was entertained by loud disco
music provided by a pretty young female disc-jockey earnestly twiddling knobs
on disco equipment artfully arranged centre stage on garbage tins and wooden
fruit boxes.
As soon as the last of the audience had found seats, the
disco equipment was dispensed with and the full cast, including legendary disco
diva, Marcia Hines, was introduced to a well-choreographed version of Randy Crawford’s
“Street Lights”. Then in a riot of dazzling lights and pumped up sound, a
series of brilliant specialty acts followed, each more jaw-dropping than the
last.
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| Iota with Yammel Rodrigues and Hugo Desmarais |
Aerial artists Yammel Rodriguez and Hugo Desmarais
drew gasps, both as soloists and together, with their intricate, high-risk
routines performed on various apparatus high above the audience.
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| Katherine Louise McLaughln in "Pigalle" |
Cheeky Katherine Louise McLaughlin (Aka “Kitty Bang
Bang”) could hardly wait to demonstrate how prettily she could shed her
gorgeous costumes. She later surprised even more, with an astonishing
fire-eating act which took tassel-twirling to a fiery new level. Violinist
Sonja Schebeck charmed with her musical talents before revealing her own
unsuspected fire-eating talents while assisting McLaughlin.
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| Zachary Webster - Marcia Hines - Chaska Halliday in "Pigalle" |
Easy-on-the-eye singer/dancers, Chaska Halliday and
Zachary Webster, were much more than eye-candy. They changed costumes endlessly,
tossed off Lucas Newland’s tricky choreography effortlessly, and provided classy
backup singing for the legendary, Marcia Hines, who has never looked more
relaxed and happy, belting out a succession of disco songs with the same
undimmed pizzazz and authority that earned her the accolade of “Queen of Pop”
more than 40 years ago.
And on the subject of pizzazz, white-faced,
velvet-voiced, Iota was the icing on the cake as he prowled the stage,
outrageously costumed and obviously relishing the company and environment.
It was an imaginative move to include for Bangarra
dancer, Waangenga Blanco, in the show. But it appeared that having cast him, Ilott didn’t know what to do with him. So
charismatic in Bangarra Dance productions, in this show, dressed in street
clothes in contrast to everyone else’s disco glitter, his idiosyncratic movement style, deprived of
point and purpose, quickly became repetitive, even boring. Pity, because in the
finale, costumed in a natty velvet suit, he suddenly came to life.
Images: Prudence Upton