Exciting new musicals in our midst

I note there are no fewer than nine new musicals opening on Broadway this season. Already several have started but it will take a lot for any of them to eclipse the current hottest ticket on Broadway in some years – namely Book of Mormon which has opened to the sort of overwhelmingly positive reviews one thought critics had forgotten how to write! It’s good to see in a Broadway season there are substantially more new musicals than revivals, quite often the opposite is the case.

I note there are no fewer than nine new musicals opening on Broadway this season. Already several have started but it will take a lot for any of them to eclipse the current hottest ticket on Broadway in some years – namely Book of Mormon which has opened to the sort of overwhelmingly positive reviews one thought critics had forgotten how to write! It’s good to see in a Broadway season there are substantially more new musicals than revivals, quite often the opposite is the case.

A new musical is a complicated beast; we have all heard the saying “musicals are not written, they are re-written” and a good number of those new Broadway musicals are shows that have been floating around in workshops for many years. A successful new musical just doesn’t happen, it takes a lot of agonising rewrites of the book and the music. For a show to get a major commercial production many backers have to be satisfied there is the makings of a hit in what they are seeing either on the page or in a workshop. We have recently seen a new big Broadway type musical open in our midst, namely Doctor Zhivago which I spent some time discussing in my last column.

I have seen a number of new local Australian musicals recently and two need very special attention.

What a joy it was this week to watch the graduating music theatre students from VCA (Vic. College of the Arts) bring to life as one of their graduating productions, a major new music theatre work in Dreamsong. All the more exciting is the fact that the show has been written by two of the graduating year, music by Robert Tripolini and book and lyrics by Hugo Chiarella.

This a full blooded two act musical with a band of nine and a cast of 27 (certainly would need cutting if produced by a professional company). This clever satire is a sharp and uncompromising look at the world of one of the many American christian groups that have popped up in the last few years, clearly based on one group in particular (no names, no pack drill!).

The musical’s conceit is, what would happen if, to save dwindling finances, one of these christian groups created a Jesus and sold the world the idea he had come back to life again. The show then poses the question – what if, while this group is promoting their false Jesus, the real Jesus came back to earth to enjoy his second coming at the same time as the fake Jesus was embracing the world. 

This is a terrific idea for a satirical musical and the show fleshes out the idea with great relish. We have a sexy barely clothed hunk of a Jesus as the imposter and a nebish Woody Allen like “real” Jesus popping out of the most unlikely places. It’s a great concept and for a first staged draft this version shows remarkable promise. It is clever that the company has chosen to stage the story in America, where the likelihood of this all happening is much more believable.

The show isn’t perfect, there are a few too many ideas floating about and the show tries to satirise every form of religious hypocrisy, consequently having the head of the religion suddenly turning gay and trying to seduce the fake “Jesus” comes across as one joke too many. The score needs more work (sometimes tuneful, sometimes the songs feel a little unfinished and the show needs a couple more genuine full throttle show stoppers) and the satire is a little less sharp edged toward the end, when everything runs a little too close to farce, but what a fantastic first effort for this team. Surely major new music theatre writers in the making, this show definitely should have a life beyond the VCA production.

So, to the most important new local musical of them all. Written originally (as with Dreamsong) as a performance project for the second year students at WAAPA, James Millar and Pete Rutherford’s A Little Touch of Chaos found its way into the recent “New Musicals” project.

Given two workshop like performances by an absolute top drawer cast of professionals, this is unquestionably one of the most important new music theatre works to be seen in this country for some years.

Millar and Rutherford have already proven themselves as vibrant and exciting new music theatre writers with their successful The Hatpin and the smaller Lovebites, but no matter the great achievement of those two shows, nothing could quite prepare for the excellence and promise of “Chaos”. This is an exemplary work, a rare beast as far as musicals go, in that, despite the fine music and strong singing performances, the book is so strong than it could almost stand on its own as a non musical play in its own right. But that should not take away from the excitement of seeing the glorious meshing of book, music and lyrics.

This is a hugely accomplished work, deeply moving one moment, hilariously funny the next. The show centres on one family in two different times – linking between the mid 70s and today. Initially it tells the stories almost as totally separate entities, and as the years peel away from the seventies side of the story it becomes more obvious how one story informs the other. It is a unique conceit that really works, ultimately being deeply deeply moving as two characters from two different stories are brought together through time and circumstance.

The show was perfectly embellished by a wonderful cast, most notably David Berry (a  major new star in the making) as the man from the seventies eventually becoming the father of the hero character of the story of today (played by James Bryers). Filling out the story of these two people are family, lovers and friends played by Andrew Bevis, Amelia Cormack, Michelle Doake (in a variety of roles, what a delicious, wonderful actor she is!!), Josie Lane, TJ Power and in particular as the two women in the life of the seventies man – Tamsin Carroll and Marika Aubrey. I have not seen better performances by two female actors anywhere in the last 12 months and the fact that they and the rest of the cast rehearsed this workshop in a week is something of a theatrical miracle and shows what happens when a cast is inspired and delighted by the material on which they are working.

I haven’t been as excited by a new Australian  play since the early 80’s when I saw a rough and ready new play called Away at the Stables Theatre. This musical needs to be seen and picked up by either a subsidised or commercial management and quickly. The show still needs work (thank God it does and isn’t totally perfect – yet!!), the first act needs a few more melodious songs (which are much more on view in Act Two) ,a principal character who is mostly spoken about needs some fleshing out  and the ending needs a bit of editing.  But this is very important work of serious promise.

We have a major new Australian musical in our midst, let us rejoice and remember you heard it here first.