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 Music & Lyrics: Anthony Costanzo
Book: Peter Fitzpatrick
Director: Kris Stewart
Presented by MAGNORMOS
Theatreworks: August 3-14, 2009
Those who know this column will know that I only write for it when compelled.
Those who are lucky, and travel quickly through life, find the 30-something time a moment for pause and question about what lies ahead. The ‘Who am I?, What am I doing here? Where have I come from?’ questions are not just asked by actors, but just about the whole planet at this 30-something stage. But, the scary one seems to be ‘Where am I going to?’.
And it is this time where life, it appears, ‘hangs in the balance’. The ever-swinging trapeze of, Decision.
LIFE’S A CIRCUS is the brainchild of Anthony Costanzo. It has been entered in the prestigious Pratt Prize twice and been a finalist both times. Spawned from the days of Anthony’s world tour with CATS, LIFE’S A CIRCUS gives voice to his observations in hotel rooms, coffee shops, airports – basically, anywhere he saw his tour mates, in and out of their lycra pussy pants.
Show tour fraternities become incredibly inward-looking microcosms and this is at the core of Costanzo’s tale with book by Peter Fitzpatrick. We get to be the microscope.
His music takes a gentle pop music theatre approach and serves this story superbly. The myriad of musical lines that you will hear in the show’s backing have all been played by Costanzo and cascade through every musical moment – there are very few moments that are not.
Enough said – just go and see it.
Chelsea Plumley (Vivien) delivers exactly what we have come to expect from her consummate ability: exquisite choices, one after the other. I know it has been written before, but it is a nonsense that this artist is not a national, if not, international name. To breathe the same air as ‘Plumley on fire’ is to breathe in the colours of life. True inspiration. If you are not crying at the end of Fly Away, a trip to a neurosurgeon could be order.
Glen Hogstrom (David) has been on too many of our stages as a chorus/bit part player. Hopefully, with this deeply sensitive but bloody masculine portrayal of troubled and wayward, David, Hogstrom will be taken more seriously. The almost-back-to-back renderings of He Loves Me Not and So Much More Than This let us know the calibre of artist we are dealing with. Detailed, subtle, bloody funny work.
Enter the younger ‘meat’ of the piece: Cameron MacDonald (Alex). The actor tackling ‘Alex’ has a job ahead of him. A complex character arc and a lot of maths “What the character actually knows, what the character doesn’t, what the character can’t know”. It takes control to not telegraph the data that the actor inevitably does know. MacDonald makes the whole thing look like a walk in the park, sings like a dream and anyone, man or woman, will just want to take him home and look after him. When I look Into Your Eyes will remain in the theatrical scrapbook of my mind for many years to come.
Kris Stewart’s deft direction cuts to the core of the story and we move swiftly from key point to key point. The audience is not under-estimated here. The welding of 4 adorable circus artistes to the story allow us to exhale and to laugh at ourselves. Lucy Birkinshaw’s lighting was a master-stroke (when you go see it, just count how few lamps are actually there) - talk about necessity and invention!
There are too many finale numbers – the story doesn’t know when it’s finished – there are two clear moments for an interval (and it needs it – WE need it), but right now, I am all about celebrating the latest addition to the Australian Music Theatre alumni. And what a fitting member it is.
Finally, I must say that Aaron Joyner’s MAGNORMOS has truly ‘arrived’ with this production. I would be happy to see it anywhere in the world.
I cannot urge you strongly enough to get down the Theatreworks and enjoy a night that will make you bloody proud about what we do here in our own backyard.
WILL CONYERS
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 GUTENBERG – The Musical by Scott Brown & Anthony King
March 21, 2009
MUSIC THEATRE REVIEW by Will Conyers.
Performers: David Harris ‘Bud’, James Millar ‘Doug’ & Bev Kennedy ‘Charles’.
Directed by Neil Gooding. Musical Director – Bev Kennedy. Choreography – Nathan M Wright.
Produced by Neill Gooding (Neil Gooding Productions Pty Ltd), Ian Stenlake & James Millar.
Playing Chapel off Chapel, 12 Little Chapel St, Prahran, VIC, March 21-23, 2009
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The phenomenon of the ‘Backers Audition’ happens rarely in Australia. (Generally a workshop ‘showing’ is what replaces it out here). But, On and Off Broadway, the ‘Backers Audition’, is a vital tradition. Simply, Producers and ‘influential cheque books’ are invited to a ‘taste test’ of a new work. Once upon a time, these theatrical investors were called ‘angels’, and with good reason: they could make or break a development process that often takes years and many set backs.
So ‘Bud’ (David Harris) and ‘Doug’ (James Millar) research the perfect story on which to base a musical. One senses that said subject came from a single 10 second search on Wikipedia: the life of Johann Gutenberg who is alleged to have invented the modern printing press. As far as fertile subjects for musicals go, ‘Eye Acupuncture’, could have more merit, but Bud & Doug are convinced that they have found, and now written, the next ‘Les Mis’.
Their enthusiasm is such, that, like seagulls to a chip, they pounce onto their panacea of musicals and invest it with some 30 characters, no less. All 30 played by ‘Bud and ‘Doug’. One other, ‘Charles’, is played by Musical Director, Bev Kennedy.
And so the ‘pitch’ begins and we are the potential backers.
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 JOHN & JEN
Book & Lyrics: Andrew Lippa and Tom Greenwald Music: Andrew Lippa September 13, 2008 - The Loft, Chapel Off Chapel
We all deserve experiences that tell us we are alive. A moment that elevates the cardio-vascular. A sharing that finds the side of our mouth doing some weird shaky thing. A laugh that you have never heard come out of your body before. A tension that reminds you of a bill left unpaid. An intimacy that allows US to feel naked. A moment when the guts turn to goo and the tears roll.
In good musical theatre these treats are inevitable. Can I say that I feel them often? No. Am I wanting to? Every time.
This JOHN & JEN - as presented by Music Theatre lieutenants Lisa-Marie Charalambous and Christopher Parker is NOT good musical theatre.
It is ASTOUNDING musical theatre.
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 Sadly, it’s rare that I feel so strongly positive about a piece of Music Theatre these days that I feel compelled to write about it.
Quite simply, there is one of the best night’s out playing right now at the Athenaeum Theatre in Collins Street. It’s called ALTAR BOYZ. And I want to be as clear as I can.
Get there. That’s all. Get there.
This show should be playing like the Original Australian production of THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW was over at the old Channel 7 Tele-Theatre in Johnston Street. For years.
Will you know of one of the cast members? No. (But you’ll certainly want to).
Is there one tune you will know? Probably not. (But you find yourself going to buy the CD when the show finishes).
Is it lavishly costumed? No. (But the costumes stick to 5 Olympic-worthy bods with no x-ray vision required).
Is the show held together by sumptuous scenic and technical design? No. (But the design is as sexy as the testosterone on stage).
And that’s where the ‘No’s’ stop.
Director - Kate Gaul, Choreographer - Antony Ginandjarwith, and, Musical Director - Robert Gavin have taken a cute and clever satirical pamphlet of a book about a fictitious Christian Boy Band. They have bravely cast it with undoubtedly the right 5 young male performers for the roles and resisted casting TV or Pop artist names. In fact, a ‘name’ would have killed the ensemble factor of this show.
And the result? Stunning and joyously wink-in-the-eye-tongue-in-the-cheek Musical Theatre Revue.
You need a whole pharmacy of Berocca to keep up with the show these lads deliver. And they deliver it by Express! (The whole show is just 1 hour and 20 minutes).
Alphabetically, Dion Bilios, Jeremy Brennan, Andrew Koblar, Cameron MacDonald and Tim Maddren all have their own impressive Music Theatre pedigrees. A rigourous audition process proved to the production team that these ‘boyz’ have at least 20 of the Ten Commandments on board. And they do. Truly, God-given.
Biblically, Matthew, Mark, Luke, Juan (think about it) and...Abraham - “He’s Jewish!” - take us through the final night of the RAISE THE PRAISE tour of this boy band from...Heaven. Every adolescent question is answered. And we laugh ‘coz we know – or, in my case, remember. And with Mr Ginandjarwith’s street-wise and wittily-observed choreography, we wish we could go back there.
ALTAR BOYZ is NOT a show about religion. ALTAR BOYZ just reminds us of our silly selves and jabs us in the moral ribs while it does so.
The 4 piece band rocks us through the night and the sound is in your face with not a pain threshold in sight. I could hear every vocal and instrumental line. (Haven’t been able to say that for a while).
If WICKED was 8.5 out of 10 – this is a 9.
Melbourne – get behind this show so that it’s still playing for my 50th Birthday party! Get there!
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Our Music Theatre buff and Host of BROADWAY AT BEDTIME, Will Conyers, blogs his observations on the industry from time to time.
CHINKS IN THE ARMOUR and...or A LITTLE KNIGHT MUSIC
Friday June 13, 2008
A cold Friday night in Melbourne saw me trekking to, and getting cozy at, The Butterfly Club. I was there to see a Musical Theatre soul-mate, Tyran Parke, do his vulnerable, controlled and crafted piece of mini-Music Theatre. It’s genesis title was CHINKS IN THE ARMOUR, but take this knight errant to the Yale Cabaret Course in NY and the show comes out the other end of the prestigious Cabaret Course ‘Rinse Cycle’ as, A LITTLE KNIGHT MUSIC.
I have always found folk younger than 50 doing autobiographical shows a little ‘icky’. But while this show is just that – autobiographical – autobiography is simply used as a device to ignite a bonfire of universal themes and thereby collecting the entire audience with the performer.
From his first entrance on a Hobby Horse, we are all asked to ‘tilt at windmills’ with Ty - and Tyran’s life - as he launches into the show’s under-pinning anthem - ‘I am I Don Quixote, The Man of La Mancha’. And we did. But it was not too long before we found the windmills of our guts having a bit of a churn as well. Not because we were being harrowed. We were being filled with joy.
Tyran’s father’s life advice to ‘Accent-chuate The Positive’ quickly became the vital ingredient of the 3 part epoxy of this show. The other two parts were Parke’s innate instinct for ‘balance and harmony’ and an elite ability in tight-rope walking the razor’s edge or emotional control (I have to say my emotional control was totally absent throughout the night. I laughed and cried and was reminded of what the kinaesthetic experience of true Theatre/Cabaret should be. I realised too, how long it had been since I had felt like this).
There was another element that rumbled beneath this performance: the desire to leave some sort of a footprint in this lifetime. In this regard, Tyran’s rendering of the Flaherty and Ahrens ‘I WAS HERE’ was, well, gutting.
Equally, the emptiness that can be felt by any theatre builder was so palpable in his smouldering version of Peggy Lee’s ‘Is That All There Is?’.
Tyran Parke is not the greatest singer or actor (although he is way more than capable in these skills), but it is his ability to be truly ‘present’ and ‘tell the truth’ that leaves the audience changed, uplifted, open.
I pray that our young get to see this sort of calibre of construction, performance and heart often enough so that our audiences of tomorrow may be secure.
To be honest – I like the first title better. CHINKS IN THE ARMOUR. It was being able to see into those chinks that made the whole evening so fulfilling. So Inclusive. So Cabaret. So Theatre. So Tyran Parke.
Next time he does this show, pillage to get a seat! |
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