PATTI LuPONE - DON'T MONKEY WITH BROADWAY

Patti LuPone. Don’t Monkey With Broadway.

Conceived and directed by Scott Wittman. Musical direction by Joseph Thalken. Canberra Theatre Playhouse. Canberra Theatre Centre. June 25. 2018

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

Patti LuPone - Don't Monkey With Broadway

 

A vase of lush red roses on a Grand. Nearby a glass of water and at the piano musical director and accompanist Joseph Thalken against a mauve cyclorama. Enter Broadway legend Patti LuPone,  winner of multiple Tony and Grammy awards and an inductee into the American Theater Hall of Fame, LuPone strides smiling onto the Playhouse stage to the instant outburst of applause from adoring devotees. She is among the acolytes of her forty year Broadway and West End career. Broadway has come to Canberra and the audience is ecstatic.

After a momentary mike malfunction, a cheerful, unflurried and consummate professional LuPone launches into her opening number, Don’t Monkey With Broadway. LuPone’s opening number is an anthem to the iconic temple of American musical Theatre that has been he profession, her passion and her love since she graduated from the Juilliard School as an actress and singer in 1973. The evening is a celebration of love. From Irving Berlin to Rodgers and Hart and Rodgers and Hammerstein, from Stephen Schwarz to Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, LuPOne shares anecdotes, intimate stories, told with the wicked assurance of a humour laced with experience and natural flair for comedy and opinions with an audience hungry for every morsel of this phenomenal artist’s amazing journey through the legendary shows of the past four decades. Don’t Monkey With Broadway for the fans is the hottest ticket that has come to town in ages.

Patti LuPone sings the songs of Broadway

LuPone and her musical director Joseph Thalken share an obvious synchronicity and Thalken’s accompaniment sparkles with sheer exuberance, in one with LuPone’s passionate joy. Her talent  launches a personal campaign for the preservation of a Broadway, steeped in nostalgia and nurturing the spirit of the songs that have inspired, excited and moved the generations who have filled the theatres to escape, celebrate or be entertained by the great composers, lyricists, performers and producers of the Broadway musical. With a word of warning LuPone admonishes the Disneyfication of 42^nd Street, the proposal to raise the Judy garland Theatre to build a mall below or the changing character of iconic Times Square. LuPone is Queen of the Golden Years of Broadway and her show serves as a celebration of the glorious age of musical theatre and artists such as Kate Smith, whom she watched on television as a young child and musicals such as South Pacific and Sweet Charity.

Throughout a two hour evening of classic LuPone songs, audiences are treated to stories of the legends of the musical. theatre Power and emotion, sensitivity and sentiment, nostalgia and humanity are the spirits of her song. With a voice as magnetic as ever, but now maturer and bursting with feeling, LuPone endows every number with its unique sound and meaning. The heart rending delivery of Easy To Be Hard from rock musical Hair to Rodgers and Hannerstein’s comical  I’m Just A Girl Who Cain’t Say No from Oklahoma to Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd and Company  and one of LuPone’s signature songs, Ðon’t Cry for Me Argentina  from Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Evita. – every song is given new life by a singer in total control of her instrument, a range that can reach from the depths of pain to the heights of elation. LuPOne is the enchantress, casting her spell but never mystifying. The audience is rapt.

A surprise is just around the corner. The theatre techs set up three microphone stands and at the start of the second half, a music ensemble of some of Canberra’s brightest musical theatre talents appears to accompany LuPone’s forceful rendition of   Ya Got Trouble from The Music Man among others. The thrill shines in their eyes – to be sharing the stage with Patti LuPOne – to be in the presence of this down to earth, fun loving, genuine, enduring and immensely talented shining star of Broadway.

Patti LuPone

The surprise does not end there. As she says, the advantage of doing a one woman cabaret is that she can take on every role and she brings the house down with a solo duet between Maria and Anita from West Side Story. Add to this her sardonic rendition of Ladies Who Lunch  from Sondheim’s Company and the tender, ironic Nothing Else Can Harm You  from Sweeney Todd  and the audience is treated to a cavalcade of highlightsts from the old and the new, the familiar and the unknown in an evening of celebration and tribute to the magic of Broadway and the stupendous talent and personality of its shining star, Patti LuPOne.

A closing, feisty and triumphant rendition of Give My Regards To Broadway foreshadows the end of an unforgettable evening with the audience cheering and applauding on their feet . LuPOne is Broadway and for one night in June, Broadway came to Canberra.

 

THE WEDDING SINGER

Emily Ridge (Julia Sullivan) and Dave Smith (Robbie Hart) in "The Wedding Singer" 

                                               

Music by Matthew Sklar - Book and Lyrics by Tim Herlihy and Chad Beguelin

Directed by Amy Dunham and Sarah Hull - Musical Direction by Jenna Hinton

Choreography by Emma Nicholls - Costumes by  Laura Jurkiewicz

Set design by Stenita -  Presented by Queanbeyan Players Inc.

The Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre 22^nd June to 1^st July, 2018

Reviewed by Bill Stephens.

What’s not to like in a musical in which a fake Billy Idol (Joe McGrail-Bateup) and Cyndi Lauper  (Kathryn Jones) reveal the pathway to true love to mullet-coifed wedding singer, Robbie Hart (Dave Smith) and winsome waitress Julia Sullivan ( Emily Ridge).  Robbie has formed a band with his best mates, likeable lout, Sammy (Tim Stiles) and Boy George clone, George (David Santolin). They specialise in wedding gigs.

Michael Jordan (Glen Guglia) - Emily Ridge (Julia Sullivan) - Josie Dunham (Holly) - Dave Smith (Robbie Hart) -David Santolin (George) in "The Wedding Singer" 

 

When Robbie’s horrendous fiancée , Linda (Emma White) unceremoniously dumps him at his own wedding, his life decends into a downward spiral from which not even his sex-absorbed grandmother, Rosie (Lauren Nihill) can distract him.

With the help of an energectic,  likeable cast, a hot band, and an endless parade of truly atrocious eighties costumes, directors, Amy Dunham and Sarah Hull, have transformed this unlikely scenario into a disarmingly silly and enjoyable entertainment.

It helps that the score is riddled with catchy songs, even though Robbie’s forte is writing ditties that are so bad they’re good and Emma Nicholls has devised a series of clever dance routines to differentiate the various wedding receptions featured  in the plot.  Dunham and Hull have provided the large cast  with endless opportunities to create a lexicon of outrageous wedding guests, and they grasp those opportunities with infectious gusto.  

Polished performances from Dave Smith, Emily Ridge, Tim Stiles, David Santolin, along with  Josie Dunham, as Julie’s air-head friend Holly, and Michael Jordan as her philandering fiancée, Glen Guglia,  anchor the show. Among the large ensemble, eye-catching cameos from Mitchell France, Shennia Spillane, Bill Lord, Emma Nikolic, Kym Starr, and Kara Sellers among the large ensemble, add to the fun.

Tim Stiles (Sammy) - Dave Smith (Robbie Hart) - David Santolin (George) 
and members of the ensemble of "The Wedding Singer"

 

Queanbeyan Players have come up with a winner with this delightful concoction but if you want to see it you’ll have to be quick. The season only runs until next Saturday July 1^st.

 

                                                    Photos by Moore Photography

 This review first published in the digital edition of CITY NEWS on 23rd June 2018

 

 

 

SAINT JOAN by GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

Saint Joan by George Bernard Shaw

A re-imagined production, directed by Imara Savage with additional text by Imara Savage and Emme Hoy. Set designer David Fleischer. Costume designer Renee Mulder. Lighting designer Nick Schlieper. Composer and sound designer Max Lyandver. Assistant director. Clemence Williams. Voice and text coach Charmian Gradwell. Sydney Theatre Company. Roslyn Packer Theatre. June 11 – 30 2018

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

Sarah Snook as Saint Joan

 The sign in the foyer of the Roslyn Packer Theatre gave the running time of the Sydney Theatre Company production of St Joan as one hour and thirty five minutes with no interval.  It was instantly obvious that this was not George Bernard Shaw’s original play. That ran for over three hours with Sybil Thorndike in the title role in 1925. 

Instead, the audience was to be presented  in director Imara Savage’s production with a version that stripped away much of the original text, included monologues written with emerging STC Writer in residence Emme Hoy and that focused on the character of Joan, played by Sarah Snook. The result is a production of such power, such relevance and such emotional impact that it speaks to our age with startling immediacy. Savage’s passionate embrace of the themes of instinctive faith versus  the institutional dictums of the church and its dogma, the dominant male power of the state and the oppression of women screams out for reason from her programme introduction.

What emerges is an expressionist re-imagining of Shaw's play. The curtain rises on a bare stage with a lone figure in armour in a spotlight. Enter, all dressed in black, an English priest (Seamus O’Shea), a French Earl (David Whitney), a  Prosecutor (Socratis Otto) and a French Bishop (William Zappa) to debate the fate of the captured  country girl prior to her trial. The priest, clothed in British superciliousness cries for the stake. The Bishop strives for redemption from the curse of heresy. At the centre of this debate is the proposed fate of teenage Joan, the fighter, the dreamer, the agitator, the faith bringer and the agent for change- the daughter of her God! Her innocence, her fervour, her wiles may break the siege of Orleans in her battle to end a Hundred Years War, but it cannot break the power of men, threatened and intimidated by a girl from the farm who hears the voices of Archangel Michael and the martyred Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret. The debate is defined by the surgical precision of conflicting ideals and ambitions. Savage and her brilliant creative team construct a Brechtian arena of argument for an audience to judge. 

Socratis Otto, Brandon McLelland and William Zappa

In order to achieve this, Savage has thrust the character of Joan into the centre of the action, surrounded by her accusers and inquisitors against whom she is compelled to raill in a life and death battle for faith and reason. This reaches a climax in the final scene, when a distraught Joan is barraged with accusation and enticement by her male accusers directly hurling their charges and pleas for renouncement to the audience. The assault is merciless, the tension excruciating and the injustice heart rending.  On an open stage, Joan is cruelly exposed, a victim of the inquisitor, played with the steely assurance of irreversible reason by John Gaden, and with faith betrayed  and hope abandoned.

Gareth Davies. Socratis Otto, Anthony Taufa

Throughout, flashbacks reveal the key events that map out the journey from the thirteen year old’s conversations with Archangel MIchael  to the seventeen year old’s  persuasive convincing of the Archbishop, also played by John Gaden, the weak Dauphin (Gareth Davies) and the General at Orleans (Brandon McClelland). A superb cast embraces the forceful purpose of this production. It explodes with conflict, argument and debate. War is waged. It is the fierce battle of ideas, of faith, of gender, of power, of territory and of minds, muzzled in a mire of obsession.

Brendon McClelland and Sarah Snook

Savage’s production references Shaw’s play, written at the time of Irish conflict with the English over occupation, shortly after the end of the Great War and within a couple of years of Pope Benedikt’s canonization of Joan and more than four hundred years after Joan is declared innocent by Pope Calixtus lll. Today, St Joan appears as relevant as ever.  The Joan of Arcs of our time appear throughout the world to cry out Bernard Shaw’s reformist ideals. Emma Gonzales is the St Joan of the teenage uprising against school shootings. Malala Yousafzi is the St. Joan in her campaign against the Taliban and their oppressive prohibition of education. And Pussy Riot’s punk outcry against the Russian oligarchy dared to decry a regime bent on its unassailable supremacy.

Sarah Snook as the condemned Saint Joan.

At the very epicentre of this stirring and thought-provoking cry for reason and action is Snook’s charismatic, magnetizing and luminescent performance.  Snook’s St Joan appears as a role model for a new age. Snook is magnificent, capturing the religious fervour and naivety of the young teenager, the deep rooted belief in her mission of the seventeen year old and the fear and vulnerability of a woman, defiled , derided and doomed by powerful, ignorant men.

I leave the theatre moved by the plight of the patriot, outraged by the injustice of blind obstruction, and hopeful that the power of Bernard Shaw’s language, the sharpness of his acerbic wit and the wisdom of his plea to the world will echo in the directness, the drama and the power of this production.

THE WEDDING SINGER

Book by Chad Beguelin & Tim Herlihy

Music by Matthew Sklar

Lyrics by Chad Beguelin

Directed by Amy Dunham and Sarah Hull

Musical Director: Jenna Hinton

Choreographer: Emma Nichols

Queanbeyan Players Inc.

The Q Theatre, Queanbeyan to 1 July

Reviewed by Len Power 22 June 2018

 

A romantic movie, where a chance meeting leads to a happy ending after lots of trouble along the way, is an appealing formula.  I remember being charmed by the original 1998 movie of ‘The Wedding Singer’ as well as ‘Sleepless In Seattle’, ‘When Harry Met Sally’ and so on.

Co-directors Amy Dunham and Sarah Hull have given us a bright, cheerful production of the stage musical version of ‘The Wedding Singer’, which originally played on Broadway in 2006.

Dave Smith shines as the wedding singer, Robbie, with a strong, likeable characterization and fine singing.  Emily Ridge is totally believable with a warm and endearing performance as Julia and sings very well, too.

Josie Dunham and Tim Stiles sang and acted their roles well and were especially enjoyable with their song ‘Right In Front Of Your Eyes’.  Michael Jordan was fine as Julia’s oafish fiancé, Glen, but needed to put more energy and sharpness into his big song, ‘All About The Green’.  Lauren Nihill was terrific as Grandma.

As George, David Santolin displayed a good sense of comic timing and got the laughs in the right places, but the ‘funny effeminate gay friend’ cliché as written is getting a bit old-fashioned these days.  Emma White performed strongly as ex-girlfriend, Linda, but it was hard to believe that Robbie would have been interested in a character like that.

There was some great work by the large ensemble who sing and dance with infectious enthusiasm.  Choreographer, Emma Nichols, has given the cast good moves that they handle very well.  Costume Design by Lara Jurkiewicz was thoughtfully and colourfully in period and worked for the characters of the performers.

The simply designed sets by Steve Galinec and Anita Davenport worked fine and the colourful lighting design by Jacob Brown added a lot of atmosphere.  Sound levels between band and singers were fine.  Musical director, Jenna Hinton, has done an excellent job with the music, which was well-played.

This is an undemanding, uncomplicated show that has been nicely staged and performed.  The charm of the original story is still there and it’s very entertaining.

Len Power’s reviews are also broadcast on his ‘On Stage’ performing arts radio program on Mondays and Wednesdays from 3.30pm on Artsound FM 92.7.

TOM WAITS FOR NO MAN

Tom Waits For No Man.

Directed by Ali McGregor. Musical direction by Charly Zastrau. Dunstan Playhouse. Adelaide Cabaret Festival. The Adelaide Festival Centre. June 17 2018.

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

Tom Waits may not be everyone’s man. The growl is legendary. The poor and bedraggled, the seedy and the down and out inhabit his world. There may be bats in the belfry and brawlers in the bar but in Waits’ world we are innocent when we dream. Tom Waits For No Man is the Adelaide Cabaret Festival’s tribute to the music and songs of a musician, composer, actor and avant-garde icon to the melancholic, the philosophic and the maverick. Hosted by Mikelangelo and directed by Ali McGregor, Tom Waits For No Man features a number of artists to reinterpret the songs, embodying the soul and spirit of  a legend but endowing his unique gift with an universal truth.

Mikelangelo. Photo by Claudio Rascella

That is why I found it difficult to grasp this tribute’s true intent, and I suspect that was partly due to the limited rehearsal time. Individually Waits was done proud by the outstanding artists, cabaret luminaries in their own right, but, although there was an attempt to capture the atmosphere of Waits’ music in the set with its assorted backdrop of instruments and objects on a wire frame and a video screen to project footage of Waits acting roles, the singers presented as their individual cabaret personas .It took a leap of faith to see past Mikelangelo’s Balkan Elvis to his forceful opening rendition of You’re Innocent When You Dream  or Butt Kapinski’s film noir detective sneaking through the audience to Tom Waits’ What the Hell Is He Building There? His running gag is the dark mystery of the sad clown. 

Butt Kapinski. Photo by Claudio Raschella

Now don’t get me wrong. These are excellent interpreters of their genre, and maybe they are reinterpreting Waits in their own image. His influence assumes cult status and these performers are his devoted acolytes. But I am momentarily unnerved by a presence that is not Waits but themselves. Perhaps that’s the point, or is it merely a convenient condition of limited rehearsal time together?  After all it was only the night before that Mikelangelo met the enigmatic Joey Arias. I would rather believe that Tom Waits and Ali McGregor’s tribute do not seek to change who a person is but rather empower them to become the person they want to be. Audiences are left to make of Waits what they may

Queenie van de Zandt. Photo: Claudio Raschella

No such confusion existed with the band. In the shadows, except for exceptional musical director, Charly Zastrau on piano, the musicians imbued the performance with the sombre mood of whisky soaked bars and the lonely atmosphere of darkly lit streets.

All outward confusion aside, McGregor’s artists find the poet’s voice. Queenie van de Zandt’s Chocolate Jesus rings with religious irony. McGregor’s Ice Cream Man edges dangerously on the double entendre, where innocence falls prey to darker intent. The pain and anger of Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis is given Carla Lippis’s manic force in her volcanic rendition. Joey Arias, compelling in his presence, sings the strained agony of the lonely heart in This One’s From The Heart. 

Joey Arias. Photo: Claudio Raschella

 All reservations fade in the emotive power of the tribute. Waits’ lyrics echo with the voices of the disenchanted and opponents to jingoistic peril as the full company launches into a stirring, defiant rendition of Kathleen Brennan and Waits’ Hoist That Rag. Escape from Life’s stark reality lulls its way into Midnight Lullaby and the recurring theme of innocence in dreams. When life is too hard and it’s ten below and you’re far from home, you’ve got to Hold On sings Mikelangelo, a closing note of survival in a programme that pays tribute to Tom Waits’ unique and influential view of a world. McGregor’s amazing company of artists rejoice in their labour of love. Their interpretation of Waits’ gift to the music world is their own, seen through the prism of Waits’ profound lyrics. The audience, devotees or novices, fortunate enough to see this one night stand, left Tom Waits For No Man richer for the experience.