Reviews: Symphonie de la Bicyclette, A Promenade of Shorts, The Mousetrap and Hairspray
Here’s our verdict on January’s big arts shows, including Brink’s Symphonie de la Bicyclette, Red Phoenix’s A Promenade of Shorts and Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap.
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Symphonie de la Bicyclette
Brink Productions
Space Theatre
January 17-21
As the Tour Down Under barrels through the city and surrounds, we’re reminded that some of us will be famous in our lives, others not.
But we all have innate desires and wishes, and it’s a commonplace of neuroscience that the act of seeking is key to satisfaction.
Hew Parham’s Symphonie de la Bicyclette brings this quest to life in a 90-minute monologue that interweaves two stories of ambition, success, and failure.
On the one hand we have Hew, a battler who’s never a winner, and not even second-best.
An encounter with a self-help guru emboldens him to have a go in a cycling race. Among the competitors is his school friend Jake, who’s always been a winner – not only is he a champion cyclist, he got Hew’s girlfriend, to boot.
On the other we have Gino Bartali, an historical figure who remains one of the all-time great road cyclists to this day.
Conscripted into Mussolini’s army, he used his celebrity to take training rides on which he risked his life to smuggle documents and cash to Jews in hiding, and pass on messages to the Italian resistance.
Will Hew win the race? Or will he crash and burn? Will Gino win the Tour re France? Or will he be caught and shot?
The two stories run in parallel, displaced in time yet occasionally connecting, like the linked strands of a double helix, until they come together as Hew and Gino both cycle in the race of their lives.
This climactic moment is brilliantly timed, the culmination of a long, tense build-up.
Symphonie de la Bicyclette is beautifully written, a deft mix of light and dark, with many amusing moments, yet not a little tragedy.
Parham is an outstanding talent, and knows well how to work an audience, while Chris Drummond’s assured direction readily accommodates the many shifts of mood and tempo.
The season is practically sold out, but you could do worse than try for a returned ticket.
– Peter Burdon
Red Phoenix Theatre
A Promenade of Shorts
Holden Street Theatres
January 12 – 21
Red Phoenix Theatre’s “Promenade of Shorts” is an ingenious assemblage of nine one-act plays, presented in groups of three across three separate venues.
The “Short”, though just 10 minutes or so in duration, is no easier for being brief. Often it’s a
masterpiece in miniature. And there are certainly some gems in this diverse selection.
The first piece, The Last Time We Saw Her from Emmy award-winning writer and director Jane Anderson, sees a successful female worker coming out to her boss. Surely a non-issue today, and even in 1995 when the piece was written. It seems curiously out of time, until the very last seconds. It’s a masterpiece in timing and affect from Geoff Revell and Lyn Wilson.
Joyce Grenfell’s Free Activity Period is a monologue where timing is of the essence. Emily Branford was a delight, even after 45 years.
It is followed by the newest piece in the program, Uma Incrocci’s A Hot Brick! from 2021, an insightful piece about the 1917-19 Silent Sentinels women’s suffrage protests.
Processional from Short-aficionados Robert Kemnitz and Jennifer McMaster is a riot, the worst wedding rehearsal in history.
Confession is a tense piece, a frightening account of a gruesome murder that sets off and even more frightening chain reaction.
The Chip is a funny, futuristic piece in which a struggling artist connects to the internet, only to find herself spouting commercials in the midst of a tender tryst.
The promotion of the new Ford Violator gets a rightly raucous laugh. Nick Fagan and Claire Keen are beautifully matched, and Keen’s voice is balm.
Captain Rockets Versus The Inter-Galactic Brain Eaters channels B-grade 60s sci-fi, with Z-grade sets and outrageous overacting.
Breakout is a workplace comedy with a terrific performance by Sharon Malujo as a mercenary whose employment by an educational software company sits poorly with an idealistic colleague.
Finally, Brian’s Got Talent is a melancholy piece, where Brian and wife Mary wait
anxiously backstage for his potential date with stardom. Jack Robins and Jenny Allan make a sweet couple.
The logistics are daunting. 25 actors, 4 directors, a dozen backstage, and another dozen or so
scouting around. Yet somehow it works. And it’s well worth seeing.
– Peter Burdon
The Mousetrap
Her Majesty’s Theatre until January 15
Spoiler alert: Audiences of Agatha Christie’s much-loved whodunit have always been sworn to secrecy; as the curtain falls, the cast asks them to be “partners in crime” and keep the killer’s identity “in their hearts”.
This reviewer can reveal that you will watch The Mousetrap with bated breath, especially if you haven’t seen it before.
Starting life in 1947 as a radio play, Three Blind Mice, which was a birthday present for Queen Mary, The Mousetrap premiered in 1952.
Still playing in London’s West End, despite a hiatus (no) thanks to Covid, it is both charmingly of its time and timeless.
This 70th Anniversary production, of what is arguably the world’s most famous murder mystery, lives up to the hype and some.
With Adelaide-born John Frost as its producer, and directed by Australia legend of the stage and screen Robin Nevin, it is, quite simply and intriguingly, a masterpiece.
The Mousetrap is set in a Victorian era estate-turned-guesthouse, Monkswell Manor – created in splendid fashion by Isabel Hudson, who was also responsible for the production’s equally elegant costumes.
The play opens with news there’s been a murder most horrid.
We quickly – and amusingly – work out for ourselves that the snowed-in guesthouse’s hosts and any of its visitors could be the killer before a not-so-smart detective arrives on skis.
It’s a strong cast. There’s no weakest link; Geraldine Turner shines as the retired magistrate you love to hate, Mrs Boyle, as does Gerry Connolly, in the role of unexpected guest, the mischievous Mr Paravicini.
Laurence Boxhall, an alumni of Adelaide’s Scotch College, and Charlotte Friels, who is making her professional stage debut, are both brilliant – as the outrageously OTT camp Christopher Wren and masculine “light pink” socialist Miss Casewell.
Anna O’Byrne and Alex Rathgeber, as the manor’s owners Mollie and Giles Ralston, Adam Murphy, as retired military officer Major Metcalf, and Tom Conroy, as Detective Sergeant Trotter, all give powerful performances.
While The Mousetrap includes traumatic subject matter, it strikes the right balance between dark and light, thanks to its quick pace and the snappy dialogue – good old fashioned banter that feels like it has a modern edge.
The plot’s little twists and turns had this reviewer on the edge of her seat right until the big reveal.
Just don’t ask me to tell you who the murderer is because, as they say in the classics, I will have to kill you.
– Anna Vlach
Hairspray the Musical
Festival Theatre until January 28
The transformation of John Waters’ cult classic Hairspray from movie to musical, then to movie musical, is one of the quirkier turns of theatrical fate.
Now in its 20th year, the musical returns to the Australian stage, for the first time in the original Tony Award-winning Broadway production.
And it’s sheer magic. The production is sensational, the music unforgettable, and the dance as good as it gets. And to top it off, a cast that’s the equal of any we’ve seen on an Australian stage for many a long year.
Excuse the rave, but it really is that good.
Hairspray is set in Baltimore in 1962. Tracy Turnblad is a hefty lass who overcomes scorn and ridicule to become a regular on a dance show hosted by teen idol Corny Collins.
She falls for the handsome Link Larkin, to the horror of spoilt brat Amber Von Tussle, who’s very much the prom queen. More controversially, Tracy uses her new-found platform to campaign for integration and equality in a city where racial segregation persisted long after the groundbreaking Brown v Board of Education case in 1954. That’s the sting in an otherwise light and breezy tale.
The role of Tracy Turnblad has been the making of more than a few actors. To that roll-call can be added Sydneysider Carmel Rodrigues, who imbues the role with the right mix of innocence and confidence, and a terrific voice, to make her a winning character. From the get-go, with the opening Good Morning Baltimore, we’re right on her side.
Tracy’s loving parents are her rock, and two of Australia’s greats are in top form. Shane Jacobson plays Edna (“a simple housewife of indeterminate girth”), a drag role made famous by Divine in the movie, and on stage by luminaries including Harvey Fierstein and Michael Ball, and Trevor Ashley in David Atkins’ Australian production. Father Wilbur is tailor made for Todd McKenney. Their Act II duet (You’re) Timeless To Me is one of the show’s many highlights.
Tracy’s extended cheer squad is a formidable bunch. Mackenzie Dunn claims a spot on the watch list as best friend Penny Pingleton, as does Sean Johnston as Link. On the other side of the racial divide – it’s there, and you’re meant to notice – there’s a commanding performance from Asabi Goodman as the community leader Motormouth Maybelle, whose soul song I Know Where I’ve Been is as fine a civil rights anthem as you’re likely to hear. There’s also the silver-toned Javon King as her son Seaweed. Bobby Fox takes over the role of Corny Collins from Rob Mills, and is arguably an even better vocal fit.
Standing up for the white – oops, they mean right – sort of people are Amber (Brianna Bishop) and her mother Velma. Velma, in particular, will stop at nothing to win the day. Rhonda Burchmore is deliciously, despicably arch, both perfect and dreadful in a scene-stealing role.
With this level of talent (including a crack local band) and the sheer exuberance of the production, you’d have to be made of concrete not to enjoy it. The epic finale, You Can’t Stop The Beat (an extended tour de force known in the trade as “You can’t stop to breathe”) sums it all up. Great music, great dance, sensational performances, and an indomitable spirit.
Hairspray the Musical is on at Festival Theatre until January 22. Tickets at hairspraymusical.com.au
– Peter Burdon
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