This musical is set during the Vietnam War – and no, it’s not Miss Saigon

This wrap of shows around Melbourne includes a musical set during the Vietnam War, night of laughs with Phil Wang, a five-star performance by the MSO, a gig that showed why The Corrs continue to draw adoring crowds, a play that gives voice to five women awaiting final judgement in the afterlife, and the story of insects told through song.

THEATRE
Dogfight ★★★
Chapel Off Chapel, until November 26

Melbourne is currently playing host to two musicals set during the Vietnam War. You can attend Dogfight and Miss Saigon back-to-back if you want, though it’ll be a stern test of how diehard a musical theatre tragic you are.

The score combines brash martial choruses of marines behaving badly with melancholy folk inspired by 1960s counterculture.Credit: Nicole Cleary

Dogfight takes the stage in a slickly designed production featuring a cast of bright young performers, and talent scouts would do well not to miss it. The score combines brash martial choruses of marines behaving badly with melancholy folk inspired by 1960s counterculture, and the best song is a furious duet from two women that echoes the late Stephen Sondheim.

The women are right to be enraged. A misogynistic ritual forms the show’s central premise. On the night before their ship leaves for Vietnam, US marines prowl the streets of San Francisco looking for dates to take to a “dogfight” party. Each recruit has put money in a pot, and whoever brings the ugliest date wins the money.

Charming. And the toxic masculinity doesn’t stop there. One marine cheats by hiring a sex worker with poor oral hygiene; another will assault a different sex worker, desperate to lose his virginity later in the night. When a jarhead asks rhetorically, “are we marines or are we assholes?“, there’s no doubt about the answer.

Dogfight takes the stage in a slickly designed production featuring a cast of bright young performers.Credit: Nicole cleary

Merely portraying misogyny, however, shouldn’t be verboten, and the callowness and cruelty and strutting bravado is linked to the marines’ expendability.

The young men treating women as sex objects will soon be treated as cannon fodder in an unjust war. They imagine a future of ticker tape parades, that they’ll be welcomed home as heroes, but all save one of this band of brothers will be slaughtered (denying them the chance to grow out of being assholes), and the “hero” Eddie Birdlace (Daniel Nieborski) gets spat upon by flower children on his return.

Dogfight somehow traces an unlikely romantic arc between Eddie and his date Rose (Antoinette Davis) into all this. Sweet harmonies can’t escape contextual bitterness and the love duets tend to aggravate Rose’s idealised role as a fount of goodness and compassion. Even the strident fury of the title song, between Rose and a sex worker (Madeline Pratt), embraces a virgin/whore dichotomy without obviously critiquing it.

As for the Vietnamese, the musical ignores them entirely. Given how problematic Miss Saigon is on that score, it might be a blessing in disguise.

Taken together, Dogfight and Miss Saigon beg the question of whether the commercial musical – a distinctly American form of entertainment, developed between world wars as a distraction from them – is well-adapted to portraying such an unqualified disaster of US imperialism as the war in Vietnam.

Not saying it can’t be done. There’s the pitch-dark gallows humour of Oh, What A Lovely War!, say, or the parodic neo-Nazi extravaganza “Springtime For Hitler” in The Producers – but as those examples suggest, satire rather than romantic drama may work better to expose wartime futility and horror within the limits of the genre.
Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead

COMEDY
Phil Wang | Wang In There, Baby! ★★★★
Hamer Hall, November 8


Phil Wang is a paradoxical comedian. He conjures up routines that are delivered with the nonchalance of Jerry Seinfeld but with content akin to the doltishness of Matt Berry.

Phil Wang is bucking the trend of what people currently expect from comedians.Credit: Matt Stronge

A household name due to a well-received Netflix special (Phil Wang: Philly Philly Wang Wang) and TV appearances on Taskmaster, Would I Lie To You? and Live at The Apollo, the British-Malaysian comedian has continued to buck the curve in recent years. Comedy has faced a reckoning of audiences wanting more cohesive narratives and thematic structures that challenge the zeitgeist. There’s nothing of that to be found with Wang.

In Wang In There, Baby!, he utilises his Eurasian heritage to juxtapose the gulfs between Eastern and Western cultures. To point out the cognitive dissonance of belief systems or the plights of those for and against egalitarianism? Not in his house. To Wang, how the BBC provides the mainstream with news of Rishi Sunak supplying aid to Ukraine is just as important as Borneo broadcasters letting viewers know that crocodiles have once again invaded their supermarkets.

He follows with piercing remarks that will make anyone studying at Deakin question their ever-growing loan repayments, and about how Chinese medicines are nothing more than aphrodisiacs for snake-oil salesmen.

It all comes to a crescendo in a final tight five where he recalls fact-checking the length of his penis for his memoir Sidesplitter.

There’s no storytelling in Wang In There, Baby! There are no underlying motifs, nor provocation of the discourse. It’s all just very silly jokes and brainless quips. He doesn’t want to make you think or alter your life perspective. He just wants to make you laugh and leave in a state of slightly befuddled bliss.

When it’s done this well, sometimes that’s all comedy needs to be.
Reviewed by Tyson Wray

MUSIC
Ryman Healthcare Spring Gala: Symphonic Tales ★★★★★
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Hamer Hall, November 9

At first glance, potential concertgoers may have been disappointed with the fare offered for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s spring gala. Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade are so well known that they risk becoming hackneyed while The Sorcerer’s Apprentice by Dukas might do little more than summon up distant childhood memories of Disney’s Fantasia. Thankfully, a rising star and powerful live performances allayed these fears.

Pianist Haochen Zhang gave a commanding performance.Credit: Nico Keenan

Making a memorable impression, 33-year-old Chinese pianist Haochen Zhang gave a commanding interpretation of the Tchaikovsky, on which he stamped his technical authority from the outset. In the outer movements the work’s famous octave passages glinted as so many brilliant-cut diamonds, further enhanced by fearlessly fast tempos.

Dazzling as these fireworks were, it was in the languorous second movement where Zhang’s true artistic mettle was revealed. Able to bend tempo and timbre, the winner of the 2009 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition created some beguiling moments of musical poetry, aided by sensitive accompaniment under chief conductor Jaime Martin.

Further pyrotechnics came in a solo encore, Horowitz’ arrangement of Les tringles des sistres tintaient from Bizet’s Carmen, in which Zhang’s hands seemed to move as fast as hummingbird wings.

Despite being well known, the Dukas is rarely heard in concert. An engaging curtain-raiser, the orchestra deftly established its magical mood before building up a richly coloured picture of the apprentice’s ensuing mayhem. Alas, not even Dukas’ sorcerer could prevent a mobile phone from ringing at the climax of the work, causing Martin to pause proceedings until the offending noise was silenced.

Jaime Martin conducts the MSO at the 2023 Spring Gala.Credit: Nico Keenan

In essence a concerto for orchestra, Scheherazade provided plenty of opportunities for the orchestra to display the depth of its individual and collective talent. Guest concertmaster Rebecca Chan gave eloquent voice to the eponymous sultan’s wife who avoids death by spinning exotic tales to her murderous husband.

Having already caught glimpses of enviable wind playing in the earlier works, the audience was treated to a succession of splendid cameos born of Rimsky-Korsakov’s vivid and inventive orchestral imagination. Cast from strength, the entire section excelled. Augmented with musicians from the Australian National Academy of Music, the orchestra revelled in the score’s heady exoticism.

Billed as an evening of symphonic tales, this concert certainly provided plenty of persuasive musical storytelling. Even if at times there were some rough edges, the MSO’s committed playing provided a timely reminder of why these works have remained perennially popular.
Reviewed by Tony Way

MUSIC
The Corrs ★★★★
Rod Laver Arena, November 6

Although Australian radio hits have been sparse lately, half of Melbourne seems to have turned out to see The Corrs – there’s not an empty seat in Rod Laver Arena as a demographically baffling crowd files in and waits patiently for five hours of music to begin.

The Corrs: “unreasonably magnificent”.Credit: Rick Clifford

Warm-up acts Germein and Toni Childs were warmly received. Full points to third support and national treasure Natalie Imbruglia, who served up her accomplished oeuvre of old and new in the face of friendly – if increasingly hectic – calls for her to hurry up and play her 1997 debut hit Torn. She persevered, but also, the hecklers were right. When she finally did sing Torn as her penultimate track, it was the best four minutes of everybody’s lives.

Until The Corrs took the stage and were unreasonably magnificent. The booming drum roll from Caroline Corr that led the band onto the stage and set opener Only When I Sleep was eye-opening in every sense of the word.

The Corrs – whose blend of power pop, traditional Irish music, sibling vocal harmony and disarmingly horny lyricism – were one of those bands that seemed inexplicably popular in ’90s Australia. And still are. Which one only understands after seeing them roll out hit after hit in the arena.

The Corrs are polished, playful and slightly anarchic without losing professionalism.Credit: Rick Clifford

Nostalgic bangers Forgiven, Not Forgotten and So Young sat alongside a break for Irish dance and several artfully done covers, including a four-to-the-floor house-inflected cover of Fleetwood Mac’s Dreams that ached for a dancefloor instead of the sensible rows of floor seating Rod Laver Arena provided. With the energy way up in the rafters, they closed with I Never Loved You Anyway – and encored with Runaway and Breathless.

Polished, playful, slightly anarchic without losing professionalism, youthful despite the years. The Corrs sound amazing. They look amazing. As an ethnically Irish person past the point of no return myself, I can only assume The Corrs have a haunted painting in an attic somewhere. A very good time.
Reviewed by Liam Pieper

THEATRE
The Waiting Room ★★★
Silver String Productions, The Butterfly Club, until November 11

Staged as part of this month’s Monologue Festival at The Butterfly Club, The Waiting Room gives voice to five women awaiting final judgement in the afterlife.

Its program states that all men “have been taken first, because … well … patriarchy”. And I did initially wonder if the show had taken inspiration from Valerie Solanas’s The SCUM Manifesto – a radical feminist tract by the failed playwright who shot Andy Warhol.

The Waiting Room gives voice to five women awaiting final judgment in the afterlife.

Alas, women have not risen in violent rebellion and killed every man on the planet, as Solanas suggested. No, the disheartening truth is that God has been made in man’s image. Dudes get ahead, even in the end times.

Five short monologues assault this inequity with humour and pathos. Despite adopting an overtly confessional mode, the writing is astute on the damaging psychological effects of patriarchal values and assumptions, offering playful critique through character and some sharp twists of the knife.

The audience assumes the role of silent arbiter in the first piece, which sees a woman (Elyse Batson) making wisecracks about her predicament and reflecting ruefully on her loneliness in life. It starts as nimble existential stand-up from a perennial third wheel, before evolving into a poignant examination of internalised body-shaming and unresolved grief.

There follows a black comic lampoon of a Gen Z narcissist (Delaram Ahmadi) blighted by a self-conception that rests heavily on sexual desirability and public attention. She gives Armageddon the TikTok treatment – live-streaming from the lap of the Grim Reaper, shamelessly blurting forth a long list of sins (including seducing her sister’s boyfriend), and blaming it all on being a Scorpio, a middle child … whatever, really, so long as the responsibility isn’t hers.

A latte-sipping perfectionist with an obsessive-compulsive streak (Amelia Dunn) has a spreadsheet of her sins ready. Last judgement? She’ll crush it, though crushing the patriarchy is another matter entirely.

An atheist (Fiona Crombie) baulks at tragic choices demanded of her by the way women are conditioned to be caregivers, and a gold-digger (Laura Knaggs) recounts increasingly wild machinations, in a rant that reaches the hysterical pitch of anti-feminist melodrama … until a subversive reveal.

For my own sins, I once judged the now defunct Short and Sweet Festival, and I can say with confidence that The Waiting Room is a cut above what’s typical of this dramatic form. A no-frills and intimate showcase of short monologues with feminist themes, it’s a good excuse to check out The Butterfly Club, a vibrant hub for indie theatre in the heart of Melbourne’s CBD.
Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead

JAZZ
MaxMantis ★★★★
The Jazzlab, November 8

It’s not every day you hear a musical interpretation of a battle between rival insect gangs. Or a jazz version of a Swiss folk tune that sounds like it’s been pushed through a cheese grater and reassembled by a slightly tipsy chef.

Lucerne-based trio MaxMantis.Credit: Sheldon Suter

Welcome to the world of MaxMantis – a world where imaginary superheroes (the Mantis clan) wrestle evil ladybugs and evoke the demented dance of moths hypnotised by the light. Fortunately, the members of this Lucerne-based trio have the talent to match their vivid imaginations and help bring their zany musical stories to life.

Lukas Gernet (piano), Rafael Jerjen (bass) and Samuel Buttiker (drums) are long-time friends as well as colleagues, and the enjoyment they still find in one another’s company was abundantly clear at their Melbourne gig this week. A surprisingly small audience turned out to hear the band, but if the players were disappointed, it didn’t show.

Their music positively brimmed with life as they navigated even the most intricately plotted tales in their repertoire with playful nonchalance. Several arrangements were pinned to fitful, lurching rhythms that the trio darted across with a razor-sharp precision that seemed effortless. Others featured memorable themes that gradually dissolved into clouds of chaos, only to suddenly re-emerge as the musicians leapt back onto the beat and resumed their tightly synchronised journey.

There were also occasions where the trio set aside the dynamic gearshifts and dramatic accents to settle into an atmospheric ballad (Anneli, wo bisch geschter gsi?) or a graceful, understated melody (101 Reasons to Save the World) buoyed by a soulful backbeat and the barest hint of a groove.

Here’s hoping this gifted trio can use their superpowers to attract more people next time they visit, as they deserve a much larger audience.
Reviewed by Jessica Nicholas

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