It’s big, it’s yellow and it’s about to take centre stage

When Joni Mitchell first fired up her Big Yellow Taxi more than 50 years ago, she likely wasn’t imagining a vehicle quite as big as the one taking shape recently in a western Sydney workshop.

The twice-sized cab dwarfed the people around it. It had just returned from the spray shop and was resplendent in a high-gloss yellow every bit as emblematic of New York as the Statue of Liberty or Macy’s storefront.

This super-sized vehicle began life in the sketchbooks of award-winning designer Brian Thomson. It’s now the centrepiece of Guys & Dolls, this year’s Opera Australia outdoor shindig on the over-water stage at Mrs Macquarie’s Chair.

Brian Thomson surveys the centrepiece of his production in the workshop.Credit: Wolter Peeters

Still, it’s one thing conceiving the idea of a massive, multi-functioning New York taxi as the main design element of a show that will be seen by up to 50,000 people. It’s quite another to be confronted for the first time by its yellowy vastness, which somehow seems even bigger in the confines of Gorilla Constructions’ Strathfield factory.

“It’s amazing and it’s terrifying,” says Thomson, admiring his creation. “I can’t tell you all the things I was thinking when I drove over here.”

Guys & Dolls, a rollicking tale of showgirls and gamblers, is a classic of the Broadway musical canon. Premiering in 1950 with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser, it has won multiple awards and cemented its place in popular culture with tunes such as Luck Be a Lady and If I Were a Bell.

This production, starring Cody Simpson, Annie Aitken and Jason Arrow, has had a difficult gestation, in particular because of the abrupt departure of director Jo Davies early in the development of the show (she has since been replaced by Shaun Rennie).

The 2021 remount of La Traviata with its now iconic chandelier.Credit: Wolter Peeters

It was Thomson who initially suggested OA bring Guys & Dolls to the outdoor stage. “I said to Jo she really should do Guys & Dolls down here,” he says. “It’d be great to have audiences leave in a state of elation rather than having someone get stabbed or die of consumption.”

Thomson was struck early on with using a taxi motif and had a friend 3D-print a bunch of models.

“I was playing around and I did one [design] where it was all taxis and it was fabulous. The whole of that street was full of taxis, the stage was full of taxis, there were taxis going into the water. But I realised that was never going to happen. But from there I thought, well, what if we had one that could do lots of things…”

Davies was initially not sold on the taxi idea, but gradually came around to the concept. “One day she said, ‘Let’s try the cab then’,” says Thomson. “And once we did that it just unlocked the whole thing.”

The cab that has emerged from the intensive design process is a veritable theatrical Swiss Army knife. Moved around the massive stage by complex mechanics, it becomes by turn a bar, a newsstand, a nightclub and more.

Thomson has a long association with Opera Australia’s Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour (HOSH) and is well-used to the challenges and possibilities presented by the outdoor stage. He was one of the creatives behind the very first HOSH production in 2012, Verdi’s La Traviata.

Bobby Fox, Angelina Thomson, Annie Aitken and Cody Simpson … and that taxi.Credit: James Brickwood

The initial proposal was for a relatively low-key production using minimal scenery and stock costumes. “I thought it seemed a good idea but a little bit trashy,” he says.

Thomson persuaded OA to think bigger, eventually ending up with a stunning, glittering 3.5 tonne chandelier as the centrepiece of the production. It was classic Thomson, who generally eschews overly naturalistic designs.

That first Traviata (it was later revived in 2021) was also an early lesson in the fact HOSH productions need to “play big” to compete with the outdoor setting and the harbour and glittering cityscape behind. And that’s without all the other challenges, such as the weather – the show goes on in all but the worst conditions – and left-field interruptions such as roosting bats and the occasional confused possum.

The flipside of this for any HOSH designer is being able to convincingly present more intimate moments on the vast stage, such as La Traviata’s pivotal Act II psychodrama between Violetta and Germont. Thomson tackled that particular challenge by having the scene played out on and around a nine-metre sofa.

“Just one person sitting on that was superb,” he says. “It did completely pull the focus down. And then when Germont entered from steps actually from the city, it was almost like he was coming from the city to the country. It worked.”

Prime among the many technical challenges for HOSH is how to accommodate musicians without a conventional orchestra pit.

Until now, the solution has been to house the 40 players in a space underneath the stage. Dubbed the “underworld” by the musicians, it is hot and cramped and relies on video and other technology to overcome the issues of synchronising the music with the singers on stage.

This year, for the first time, the orchestra is released from its lair and plays from a purpose-built, weatherproof gantry at the rear of the stage.“The orchestra will be part of the party,” says Thomson. “And this show should be like a party at the end.”

Guys & Dolls will be Thomson’s fourth production on the harbour. He has had plenty of opportunity to consider what style of production works best in the venue. Every HOSH production has to be unique, he says, because of the extraordinary surroundings.

“I think the important thing is to do a show that you cannot do in the theatre,” he says. “You cannot do any of the [HOSH productions] that I’ve done in the Opera House. And that’s how it should be. This is a unique experience.”

Guys & Dolls is at Mrs Macquarie’s Chair until April 20.

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