CANBERRA CABARET FESTIVAL

  

Canberra Cabaret Festival.

Facilitator Anne Somes. Set design Cate Clelland. Sound design. James McPherson. Lighting design Craig Muller. ACT HUB.  The Causeway Hall. Spinifex Street. Kingston.February19-21 2024. ACTHUB>COM>AU.

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

Janie Lawson on the search for Papa in
DNA THE CABARET

The lyrics sing in my head. “What good is sitting all alone in your room, come hear the music play. Life is a cabaret old chum. Come to the cabaret.” ACT HUB hosts its second Canberra Cabaret Festival at the old Causeway Hall in Kingston. I attended the final night last Saturday to see two of Canberra’s finest music theatre performers present two hours of first class entertainment. If Janie Lawson’s DNA the Cabaret and Dave Collins’s Dave 101 are anything to go by next year’s festival is a treat not to be missed.

Janie Lawson finds herself in
DNA THE CABARET

I have to express some surprise. I was expecting an hour of entertainment. What I got instead were two cleverly devised cabaret performances performed with professional panache by Lawson and Collins. Lawson’s DNA The Cabaret is an intriguing account of Lawson’s discovery that her DNA results indicate that she is 50% Italian which comes as quite a shock given that her mother led her to believe that she was in fact Scottish, much darker than her fair-haired sibling brothers but Scottish nonetheless. And so begins a fascinating search to discover the true identity of her father. Interspersed with songs and accompanied by virtuoso musical director Callum Tolhurst-Close on keyboard Lawson shines as chanteuse, comedienne and captivating storyteller . Her journey from her Scottish roots (Skye Boat Song) leads her on a desperate search for her father (Papa Can You Hear Me from Streisand’s Yentl, soulfully rendered from the heart) to her mother’s comment “He had a hat” which segues into The Man With A Hat, with lyrics rewritten to Sondheim’s The Ladies Who Lunch from Company” until she finally unites with Italian sisters and triumphantly sings her rousing rendition of self discovery, I Am What I Am from Jerry herman’s  La Cage Aux Folles. DNA The Cabaret is sheer enchantment. Lawson’s personal story is fascinating in itself, and every audience identifies with the need to know one’s true identity. Lawson’s audience is gripped in a state of enchanted engagement. The performance is intriguing, funny, uplifting and heartwarming. It deserves a longer season.

Dave Collins and Amelia  Andersson-Nickson get happy in Dave 101

Where Lawson ends with a triumphant number, Collins opens his personal story with a powerhouse rendition of Kander and Ebb’s When You’re Good To Mama from Chicago. Dave 101 is Collins’s attempt to write the recollections of a troubled life of poor choices from Queanbeyan Public School to the APS and a hopeful dating app. It’s a sad sack life but you can’t help liking the doleful Collins. He’s the kind of character you would like to care for. His performance is magnetic. His longing for love and acceptance touchin in the tradition of the sad clown. 

Dave Collins and Kara Murphy navigate HR in DAVE 101

 In his search for a happy relationship, a satisfying job and acceptance, Collins is joined by HR colleague Kara Murphy with The Temp and the Receptionist by Kooman and Dimond and a vivacious Amelia Andersson-Nickson who lets him know that Happy days Are Here Again and he should Get Happy. It’s not that easy when you are in love with the same guy as Louiza Blomfield. They deliver another great duet from Chess,  I Know Him So Well ( Tim Rice and Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus). Dave 101 will never get written as Collins devours the torn pages but he brings his performance to an end in the knowledge that it’s OK to be a Screw Loose (Music by Adam Schlesinger. Lyrics by David Javerbaum) And that’s cabaret!

 

Dave Collins does cabaret with DAVE 101

Lawson and Collins command the space and a full house clapped and cheered. I didn’t get to see Deborah O’Toole who performed her show on the first night. Facilitator of the festival Anne Somes is aiming for a two week festival next year. I have often commented on the remarkable musical and music theatre talent that exists in Canberra and Queanbeyan and I urge everyone to be swept away by the stories and the performances that make cabaret such an exhilarating night at the theatre. Only a more aesthetic design, décor and setting in the cabaret tradition could have created a more intimate and atmospheric space in the century old Causeway Hall.

Dave Collins and Louiza Blomfield in DAVE 101

From small things big things grow and I predict that the ACT HUB Canberra Cabaret Festival could be the place to go to for the best of local talent that Cabaret has to offer. This year’s offerings are proof enough that talents like Lawson and Collins are a shining promise of great things to come.

Photos by Ben Appleton - PHOTOX