Developed by Arts Victoria, the Victorian Government’s arts funding and policy body, Theatre Alive was established to fill a need in the market where lovers of independent theatre in and around Melbourne could find information on shows and upcoming attractions.

Most impressive on Theatre Alive’s website is a directory listing of nearly 200 independent theatre companies and artists. Each company is alphabetically sorted with an image and brief description about who they are, accompanied by relevant contact details. In case you thought that was impressive, how about another directory listing of 40 Melbourne venues for independent theatre, as well.

Most importantly, Theatre Alive’s main website section covers current and upcoming independent theatre shows in Melbourne, including necessary booking details. The average theatre goer can also publish their own review or check out links to independent theatre reviews in Melbourne’s daily press. There are also areas for news and employment, casting, training and professional development opportunities in the scene.

If you’re an independent theatre artist or company in Melbourne, your listing is free on the Theatre Alive website. As for drama and theatre teachers, whether you take the students or just visit independent theatre without them, Theatre Alive is a fantastic resource for you.

Spring Awakening meets August Osage County meets Rent in the Melbourne Theatre Company’s new rock musical Next To Normal. A heart-breaking piece about a family in turmoil coping with their mother’s mental illness, Next To Normal is at times a gripping drama that avoids over-sentimentality by packing a punch of raw, unadulterated energy from a talented MTC cast.

Next To Normal premiered Off-Broadway at the Second Stage Theater in 2008, before going to Washington DC for some re-working, finally landing at Broadway’s Booth Theatre in April 2009. The Melbourne Theatre Company’s acquisition of the work is fast, with Next To Normal only closing on Broadway in January of this year.

A critical and commercial success, Next To Normal missed out on winning the 2009 Tony Award for Best Musical to Billy Elliot. However, Tom Kitt’s score and Brian Yorkey’s book and lyrics for the show won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

The Melbourne Theatre Company’s cast is mostly even in their respective roles. Matt Hetherington portrays a strong, yet sensitive husband and father in Dan Goodman, while Bert LaBonte is completely engaging as Dr Fine and later, Dr Madden. Strangely, the TV star and drawcard of the show, Kate Kendall, doesn’t seem quite at home as the musical’s protagonist Diana Goodman. While she successfully displayed the vulnerability needed for the role, Kendall’s voice was not suited to several of the songs, particularly the heavier rock numbers, where to be fair she looked a little bit silly.

The highlight of Next To Normal is unquestionably the show’s three Melbourne Theatre Company debutantes Benjamin Hoetjes (Henry), Christy Sullivan (Natalie Goodman) and Gareth Keegan (Gabe Goodman) who all gave flawless performances. All three actors are recent graduates of the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA), with Keegan (2007), Sullivan (2009) and Hoetjes (2010) proving yet again how vital WAAPA is to the success of Australia’s performing arts industry.

Most members of an audience can relate in some way to the themes, if not the plot of Next To Normal. While this is far from your average musical, its heavier subject matter of mental illness hits home to anyone who has been affected in some way by similar situations in their own immediate and extended families or friends. Yorkey’s book is strong and Kitt’s score is at times beautiful; at other times raw and in your face. Hence all the comparisons to the likes of Spring Awakening. This is no musical comedy folks, but rather an intelligent piece of theatre that displays the darker, less public side of life.

Richard Roberts’ set design of a two-storey house is effective, impressive and functional, while Dean Bryant’s direction was intelligent. Although there were moments of the band visibly on stage upstairs on the set that bothered me, because they broke the illusion of the fourth wall in a show I was very much “inside” of, on the whole Next To Normal appears to be directed with precision and great care.

I can’t help thinking though when you have a musical with this subject matter, the intimacy of the 500-seat Sumner Theatre may have been a better choice than the two-tiered 850-seat Playhouse at The Arts Centre. It appears Next To Normal may have been programmed in the Playhouse for economic, not artistic reasons. No doubt intended as one of the MTC’s cash cows for the 2011 season, not surprisingly Next To Normal’s season has been extended until 4 June.

The Melbourne Theatre Company’s education program and the Sydney Opera House’s House:Ed are hosting a local production of Random by young British playwright debbie tucker green. A tightly directed and beautifully performed 45-minute monodrama, Random is a powerful play that explores how an average family living in the outskirts of London deal with the death of their brother and son.

debbie tucker green has written Random in Jamaican creole, or patois. For Australian audiences largely unfamiliar with this form of grammar, it can at first be somewhat disengaging to listen to in the theatre. But the wind soon turns, as this language swiftly becomes one of the features of the performance, resulting in a poetic verse (of sorts).

Zahra Newman, Jamaican-born herself, performs many characters in Random. Her primary character, Sister, is both storyteller and narrator, as all events in the plot are told through her lens. Non-naturalistic devices include direct address, as Sister comments upon stage action to the audience, and the seamless transformation between one character and the next throughout the drama. Newman’s fine acting allowed for many comical moments in part one, particularly her clever portrayal of the cool teenage charm of Brother and the muted maleness of Father. Conversely, she handled the play’s darker moments in the second half with sensitivity, never straying into the realm of sentimentality or melodrama.

Random is a low-budget touring production open to the general public, but primarily aimed at senior secondary students studying drama. Tanja Beer’s set therefore is simple, yet effective, incorporating a series of lighting truss in various configurations. These form many environments in the play from inside the family home, to Sister’s workplace, and then outside where Brother was randomly killed.

Leticia Caceres has carefully directed Random in an open space with minimal interaction between set and performer. Within the confines of the lighting truss, various locations are well defined. Newman’s character transitions are obvious, yet mostly subtle. She avoids over-the-top transformations, working the audience in the process. It was a case of concentrate or lose it, as the audience followed Newman’s every move while she changed characters without alteration to costume and no props to speak of. Careful use of gesture, voice and facial expressions enabled Newman to convincingly perform multiple characters.

debbie tucker green’s Random is a well-written play that will leave its audience thinking and feeling about a growing concern in contemporary society; the increasingly common random attacks of violence amongst today’s youth. The Melbourne Theatre Company’s production was a powerful piece of unembellished theatre where the actor’s skills reigned supreme. Grotowski, surely would have approved.

Random’s limited season at the Melbourne Theatre Company concludes Friday evening. Random will be performed at the Sydney Opera House from May 17-20.

Teacher and student resource web links on Random are located here on The Drama Teacher.

The current Malthouse Theatre/Sydney Theatre Company co-production of one of Bertolt Brecht’s earlier works, Baal, is the most confronting play I have seen in a long time. Male nudity, female nudity, cross-dressing, alcoholism, men kissing men, women kissing women, simulated sex, attempted rape, violence and murder are just some of what Baal has to offer on stage. Definitely not a play for the faint-hearted.

This review comes near the end of the season of Baal at Melbourne’s Malthouse Theatre because, initially, I had not intended to attend this show. Knowing that Baal was not one from the top shelf of Brecht’s 40 or so plays, I thought I may give this one the slip. It doesn’t have the sophistication or maturity in the writing as Mother Courage and her Children or The Caucasian Chalk Circle, mostly because its first version was written when Brecht was just 20 years of age. But a last-minute change of mind occurred because Baal is rarely performed in the professional arena. In fact, Brecht in general is seldom performed in professional mainstream contemporary theatre in Australia. Yet here we have the second major Brecht production in Melbourne in less than a year (Malthouse Theatre also co-produced The Threepenny Opera in conjunction with Victorian Opera in June 2010). This fact, alone, must be celebrated.

Baal bares all the hallmarks of an angry young man and is written before Brecht developed both his Marxist principles and his epic theatre techniques that would later make him one of the most influential figures in 20th century theatre. It was written in response to The Loner (Der Einsame) by Hanns Johst, where the main figure was a romantic lone artist. Baal centres around its title protagonist, a young poet-singer idolised like a God by his peers as a young artist of critical acclaim. But Baal (the character) is an amoral, anti-social, anti-authoritarian and anarchistic cult-like figure who treats others as he sees fit, and without consequences. He is an anti-hero with little respect for the women he deals with and abuses in his world of disorder; one that lacks any sense of value system.

This version of Baal (the play) was a swift 75-minute drama that literally left me numb at the end. Was this a translation or an adaptation? Is this Brecht’s first play or not? Was it semi-autobiographical? Which version of the two or three Brecht wrote for Baal was the stimulus for this production? Does all this really matter? Probably not. But so thought-provoking and confronting was this play, I found myself in the rare situation of relief when the cast dropped their characters and became “human” again to take their bows at the end. I say human, because in the play they were monsters.

Was this Baal style over substance? A visual feast it surely was, but the poetry in Brecht’s verse for the spoken dialogue of the play’s protagonist in particular, was quite beautiful. This production has already left many with widely divided opinions (isn’t that the sign of good theatre?), but for me it definitely had substance. Was it intended for this cast to merely “demonstrate” their roles instead of fully consuming them? How does one treat a Brecht play nearly a century after its writing, knowing that at its first performance Brecht had not fully developed his anti-realistic theories for acting and the stage?

Regardless, the acting in this production was consistently strong. Thomas M Wright’s portrayal of Baal was mesmerising, at times scary. A finely calibrated performance, Wright’s interpretation of Baal was utterly convincing and powerful on many levels. Was this production expressionistic or epic theatre? Probably a bit of both and also a bit of neither. There were touches of expressionism, particularly in the Christ-like visual of Baal being carried out at the play’s conclusion, and also brief moments of epic techniques in the minimalist set design, use of song and breaking of character. Yet so much of this production was in an in-your-face assault on the senses, Antonin Artaud may have been proud to call it his own, too.

Props (no pun intended) go to Simon Stone and Tom Wright for their translation of the text and to Stone for his direction. Any Brecht production of quality given the opportunity to perform to the masses is a plus for contemporary theatre in this country. I doubt Brecht’s nearly century-old original text would have engaged the audience anywhere near as much as this version did.

Baal is playing at the Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne, until 23 April and from 7 May through to 11 June at the Sydney Theatre Company.

As a side note, watching Baal reminded me of a situation in late 2009 when my Year 11 Drama class asked me: if we have a widespread use of ratings for film and these days even PS3 and XBOX games, then why don’t live theatre shows have ratings for people to see in advance for deciding whether to attend or not? Warnings are now becoming more commonplace. But should we have MA and the like for theatre shows? A healthy classroom debate ensued. I wouldn’t go anywhere near taking my students to see a show such as Baal, for reasons that should be obvious in the opening paragraph of this review. While what is “acceptable” theatre for teenagers is up to the individual (teacher in this case), I notice Baal has been included in the Sydney Theatre Company schools education program as a day in May for students to receive a briefing just prior to the play’s opening in the STC mainstage season. I wonder if they’ll tell the students what the play entails on stage? More importantly, will drama teachers follow the prompts and then go and see Baal with their students? Good luck fielding the phone calls from their parents afterwards! Granted, it comes with warnings for students and teachers to see, but it also comes with this warning “It is not recommended for people under the age of 18″! I think the STC should heed their own warning(!), because Baal isn’t even remotely suitable for high school students in my opinion. If the STC has (rightly) stated Baal is not suitable for students under 18, then why is it part of their schools education program? As the current President of the drama teachers association here in Victoria, these sorts of things do worry me.

Rock of Ages, the hit Broadway musical about true love, bad 80s music and even badder hair, has finally arrived in Australia at Melbourne’s Comedy Theatre. While this may not be Shakepseare, Rock of Ages does provide for a fun night out at the theatre and plenty of great 80s tunes to sing along to.

Rock of Ages opened exactly two years ago on Broadway at the 1,00-seat Brooks Atkinson Theatre, until recently downsizing to the 600-seat Helen Hayes Theatre. Nominated for five Tony Awards in 2009, including one for Best Musical, Rock of Ages didn’t win any of them.

While the show will likely appeal to a wide demographic, two factors stand true with this musical – recognition and experience. If you don’t recognise enough of the songs in the show, you’ll be struggling to enjoy it. Similarly, two hours of Rock of Ages on stage will be a much better event if you have lived through these songs and experienced them first hand. While some of today’s teenagers may be drawn to Rock of Ages thanks to the oversupply of 80s tunes on the ever-so-popular TV show Glee, it will be a bit like a 17 year-old attending an Eagles concert with his 50-year old father – two different experiences happening at the same time.

But a word of warning: Rock of Ages is also not a suitable show for the teens. A bit of pot smoking and foul language was pale in comparison to some of the “costumes” worn by the “ladies” and their gyrating moves. About a third of this show is set in an L.A. strip club with some pretty sleazy choreography, so I’d think twice about taking the kids to this one.

The strongest aspect of Rock of Ages was definitely the songs. While not exactly a greatest hits of the 80s (even die hard 80s music fans will struggle to recognise all of the songs in the show), it was nevertheless an impressive list of hits from the era of bad taste and bad music. The show has everything from the heavy rock of Twisted Sister’s We’re Not Gonna Take It and Quiet Riot’s Cum On Feel the Noize to the soft power ballads of Foreigner’s I Want To Know What Love Is and Poison’s Every Rose Has Its Thorn. When a musical like this finishes with the cast dancing to Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’, you know you’ve had a rockin’ good time. The Rock of Ages band, Arsenal, was nothing short of superb. Tzan Niko’s electric guitar solos were so hot, they were sizzling.

Rock of Ages is like MTV on stage. I recall the dawn of MTV in Australia, at least. Six years late, it arrived in 1987 on Friday and Saturday nights with Channel 9 Australia’s Richard Wilkins hosting a truncated version of the 24-hour show from America. Here was Whitesnake, Foreigner, Pat Benatar and REO Speedwagon in all their bad 80s glory beamed right into my living room. So obsessed was I with MTV, my father today still tells a joke about how he was certain I passed a degree in music television in the 80s, instead of the university drama education degree I was officially enrolled in at the time!

The weakest aspect of Rock of Ages was the plot. In a word, lame. While no one expects a Pulitzer Prize-winning story line, this show is a jukebox musical in its purest form. The story of Drew (Justin Burford) and Sherrie (Amy Lehpamer) who fall in love against all odds (like the 80s reference?) even has subplots(!), but they are all so predictable you’ll see them coming a mile away. In true Mamma Mia! style, the plot advances in Rock of Ages are merely vehicles for the next big 80s tune to arrive. While some will love it, this is the very thing Broadway has been criticised for … creating jukebox musicals thin on plot with a succession of hit songs that make the experience more akin to a concert than musical theatre.

The acting was more than passable, with some of the characters so cheesy and caricatured your belly will hurt from the laughing. The show’s overweight, chain-smoking narrator, Lonny (Brent Hill), is hilarious from start to finish. Justin Burford (ex member of Perth band The Sleepy Jackson and current member of End of Fashion) is well casted in the male lead of Drew, with a killer voice for all the great 80s tunes his character sings in the show.

Amy Lehpamer reminded me so much of Christie Whelan, the current lead in the Australian version of Xanadu The Musical, both in terms of appearance and characterisation. Are these ladies twins? Must be the long legs, long blonde hair and deliberate “blonde” acting in their respective roles that striked so many similarities for me. Lehpamer’s voice was very good and she performed a convincing portrayal of Sherrie as the female lead.

The other notable mention in the show was Michael Falzon. As rocker Stacee Jaxx, he steals all the girls hearts with his long curly hair and “charming” personality. Falzon showed a good sense of comic acting and a fantastic voice that had most of the women in the audience ignoring their partners in the next seat, let me tell ya!

Also there to look forward to was the customary 80s mullet, shocking big hair from the ladies (trendy at the time!) and bad 80s costumes (and by “bad” I mean 80s “bad”, as in “good”!). This was a solid ensemble for the Australian production of a successful Broadway musical. While it’s not the greatest show on earth, Rock of Ages was definitely an enjoyable romp back to an era where the music really wasn’t that bad at all.

In the works is an upcoming movie version of Rock of Ages, reportedly starring Tom Cruise, Russell Brand, Mary J Blige and Alec Baldwin.

All performers in the concerts received exceptionally high marks in their 2010 performance exams, auditioning their pieces back in January for Top Class consideration. Not all invitees were successful in being included in the 2011 Top Class program. This year 19 performers were selected for the two concerts of Top Class Theatre Studies, while 28 were included in three concerts of Top Class Drama.

Below is the breakdown of representation from Government, Independent and Catholic schools for each discipline in this year’s concerts:

Top Class Drama

• Government: 6
• Independent: 15
• Catholic: 7

Top Class Theatre Studies

• Government: 3
• Independent: 11
• Catholic: 6

Noticeable in both participation lists, according to student enrolments in these subjects, is the over-representation of Independent schools and the under-representation of Government schools, while Catholic schools lay somewhere in the middle.

This year I attended two Top Class Drama concerts on Friday 1st April with Year 11 and 12 Drama students from my school.

Highlights in Drama, Concert 1:

• Hamish Gould, Huntingtower School, Mount Waverley
• Sally Webber, Yarra Valley Grammar School, Ringwood
• Nick Eynaud, Loyola College, Watsonia
• Marnie Banger, Avila College, Mount Waverley

Highlights in Drama, Concert 2:

• Natalie Tencic, Methodist Ladies College, Kew
• Steph Gonelli, Loyola College, Watsonia
• Stephanie Panozzo, Kilbreda College, Mentone
• Micheal Kay, Scotch College, Hawthorn

Once again, an amazing array of objects were transformed in Drama solo performances this year. We saw everything from hats and hat boxes to poles and candles. Although two of the ten examination structures from 2010 prescribed the use of song in the solo performance, noticeable this year was the successful inclusion of songs in performances that did not have song prescribed. Food for thought for VCE Drama teachers reading this post.

Without a doubt, Top Class Drama and Theatre Studies is one of the best learning experiences for VCE teachers and students, alike. Students walk away daunted by the skill of the performers, but inspired to tackle their own Year 12 solo and monologue performances with enthusiasm.

Congratulations to all the teachers and students connected with this year’s Top Class Drama and Theatre Studies concerts, Chief Assessors Philip Norman and Richard Sallis, and to the Season of Excellence office at the VCAA for yet another fine year of Top Class concerts.

The best of the best from all the Top Class performing arts concerts in music, drama and dance will occur at the Top Acts concert on Friday 13th May. Note the change of venue this year to the Palais Theatre, St Kilda, due to renovations at Hamer Hall.

Top Acts 2011 Booking Details.

What did other people think of this year’s Top Class Drama and Theatre Studies concerts? Comments welcome.

Check your brain in at the door folks … Xanadu The Musical has arrived in town. This stage version of the 1980 film starring Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly hit Broadway for just over a year in 2007-2008. It was even nominated for Best Musical at the Tony’s. Thank God In The Heights won that one! But this sure ain’t Broadway. However you market it, the Grand Xanadu Marquee in Melbourne is a circus big top on a vacant block under the Bolte Bridge. Not exactly classy.

There was only one thing good about Xanadu, the film, 31 years ago and that was Olivia Newton-John’s vocals. Coincidentally, this stage review mirrors that of the movie with one star awarded for Christie Whelan’s great vocals in the lead role of Clio/Kira and that’s about it.

Thankfully, the only way to go when you’re doing a stage version of a wildly popular, but critical disaster of a movie is to spoof it up. You’d think you couldn’t go wrong. How hard is it to pull off deliberate bad acting, right? Well, somehow the Xanadu cast made this one of the most forgettable nights at the theatre I’ve had in years.

The jokes fell so flat, the only people laughing were those who had a few wines under their belt. The acting was so average, I thought I was watching a very bad school musical, instead of a send-up of a very bad movie. The set was lame, the rollerskating okay and the venue so tacky I was waiting for the elephants to arrive.

A pity really, because Xanadu has at least three fabulous songs in Magic, Suddenly and Xanadu the title track. On stage, many of the songs were interrupted with dialogue part-way through, ruining the song in the process. There was so little set design to speak of, the blocking and choreography must have been done Shakepseare-style, almost on a bare stage.

I’d think carefully about paying the $86 ticket price. After I cringed more than I laughed at a ratio of 10 to 1 and looked at my watch five times in 90-minutes, I knew this was not going to be a memorable night at the theatre. I suspect after the dust has settled, this may be one of those shows the cast quietly erase from their CV in order to get work again in the future.

I know Xanadu is meant to be a spoof and just a bit of fun, but this production can’t even do a good spoof of a terrible 80s movie with great songs. Mamma Mia and Hairspray were a lot of fun. Sadly, Xanadu was not. The big top was less than half full. Time to start filling the house with comps.

There is bad theatre, good theatre and there is great theatre. Xanadu is atrocious theatre. If you must see it, at least make sure you hit the bar before the show. It will take some of the pain away.

In 2006, Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline performed Bertolt Brecht’s masterpiece Mother Courage and Her Children with the Public Theatre in New York’s Central Park. Adapted by Tony Kushner (Angels in America), this 2008 documentary DVD of the event provides a rare insight into both Streep’s acting craft in rehearsal and Brecht’s theories in performance.

For anyone teaching Brecht’s Epic Theatre, this DVD is a gem. The documentary explores Mother Courage itself, the play and Kushner’s adaptation in a modern context (Iraq War etc), behind-the-scenes theatre-makers mounting a production in rehearsal, and Brecht’s life in Germany, other European countries, America, and then Germany again after WWII. His theories explored in performance are littered throughout the documentary.

It includes seldom-seen footage of Brecht before the House Unamerican Activities Committee, extended interviews with Meryl Streep, Tony Kushner and Brecht’s elderly daughter reliving moments of her youth with her father.

Visual media of Brecht’s work is so rare today, this DVD serves as a valuable resource for senior high school teachers and university lecturers, alike.

Fortunately, you can now purchase this DVD on Amazon.

If you thought Mamma Mia! was the ultimate feel-good musical of the past decade, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Double that feeling and you’ve got the Melbourne production of Hairspray, now showing at The Princess Theatre. Hands down, this is one of the best musicals this city has witnessed in a long while. And if you thought Hairspray may be a show you’re not prepared to part your hard-earned cash for, think again. Hairspray is so good, seeing it once is simply not enough.

22 year-old Jaz Flowers is a breath of fresh air as main character Tracy Turnblad. A graduate of the Music Theatre course at Ballarat University, Flowers is a showstopping talent with a beautiful voice and a stage presence well beyond her years and experience. Perfectly cast in the main role, she has energy, pizzazz, comic timing and a dance step that’s not too shabby, either. Most impressive is Flowers’ ability to engage her audience; a mighty task in a 1,500-seat theatre. She is just as exciting to watch from the back of the grand circle as she is from the front of the stalls. Enjoy her skills as a performer, because this rising star of the Australian theatre scene isn’t going anywhere soon.

Jack Chambers (Link Larkin) in many respects steals the show with his good looks, angelic voice and mesmerising dance steps. This may be what you’d expect from Australia’s first So You Think You Can Dance winner of 2008 and the good news is he doesn’t disappoint. Comedy plays a vital part of the success of Hairspray and you’ll be laughing until it hurts at Tracy’s best friend Penny Pingleton, played by Esther Hannaford, and Tracy’s arch enemy Amber Von Tussle, portrayed by Renee Armstrong. These two actresses are hilarious in their respective cardboard cut-out roles. Hannaford is a gem as the geeky, gorky, uncoordinated nerd, while Armstrong is a total crack up as the caricatured villainess, perfectly displaying a nasty Legally Blonde.

Trevor Ashley is great as Tracy’s mother Edna. It’s a tough gig when your predecessors have been Divine on the London stage and Harvey Fierstein on Broadway, but Ashley plays the role with aplomb. Meanwhile, Scott Irwin is fabulous as the cheesy, all-smiling Corny Collins. Tevin Campbell as Seaweed J. Stubbs is a heartthrob for the girls, matching Chambers as Link Larkin. Why does Campbell plays his role so smoothly, you ask? Well, he performed the same role in the Broadway production of Hairspray not so long ago. Cle Morgan portrays a powerful Motormouth Maybelle, while Grant Piro plays a highly entertaining Wilbur Turnblad. All up, the casting in this show is meticulously accurate and a joy to watch. All the principal roles are performed with such strength, your only difficulty will be deciding which ones to follow closely during the show. It’s a smorgasbord of talent. While the youth in the recent version of West Side Story didn’t quite sit right on a number of levels, the talented young cast members of Hairspray suit the show perfectly.

One thing you’ll notice about Hairspray, no matter where you sit in the house, is that it is loud, sometimes very loud. This is a good thing! The music and singing in this show are hard to fault. The orchestra sounds fantastic and if you are one of those who gets frustrated by performers who cannot sing their lines with clarity, the diction delivered in all songs in Hairspray is spot on. Just like the movie, Hairspray’s score is infectious. You’ll be leaving the theatre singing songs like “Good Morning Baltimore”, “Welcome To The 60s” and “You Can’t Stop The Beat”.

From start to finish, Jason Coleman’s choreography in this show is a visual feast. While the dancing in the Melbourne production of Mary Poppins is incredibly tight only a few blocks from Hairspray, particularly during everyone’s favourite  Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, Hairspray’s choreography blends beautifully with stage direction and character movement, throughout. Meanwhile, the big show-stopper numbers in Hairspray are dance extravaganzas.

A rare occurrence in musical theatre premieres has resulted in the Melbourne production of Hairspray not looking like its counterparts did on the West End or Broadway. Nearly all major musical theatre shows are purchased like a franchise, with quality control ensuring the sets, characters, costumes etc all look exactly like the original stage version did. New for the Melbourne production is an incredible set comprised almost exclusively of several enormous 7-metre tall television-like screens. As video technology continues to creep its way into contemporary theatre, the type of technology seen in Melbourne’s Hairspray is the first of its kind in the world.

The outer ring on the edges of the proscenium of the Hairspray set is the shape of a 60s television screen. All aspects of the show are cartoon-like and the huge video screens create a series of moving sets behind the performers. Developed by Sydney-based company Digital Pulse, this will almost certainly be the most impressive use of technology you have ever seen in a theatre production. Using animation and motion graphics, the brightly coloured sets not only move, but cleverly interact with the characters on stage. While it may not be everyone’s cup of tea and they can make one a little giddy at times, this is an unbelievable set on a series of screens that leave your 50-inch plasma at home looking like your little sister’s iPod.

The Melbourne production of Hairspray showcases Australia’s ability to produce an international musical as good, if not better, than those on Broadway and the West End. This is first-rate musical theatre. Be prepared to go once, twice, three times if you can!

Official Hairspray Australia Website

Ticketek Australia

Finucane and Smith’s Carnival of Mysteries, part of the Melbourne International Arts Festival, is a great concept … on paper.

Take your audience into the bowels of fortyfivedownstairs in Flinders Lane and for a couple of hours, transport them into another time and place. This is the world of the sideshow alley with acts as varied as a clairvoyant, The Living Radio who sings songs from decades gone, dancers with over-sized hair wigs, a jazz singer, magic acts and storytellers.

The space was faithfully transformed into curtained tents of all shapes and sizes where acts would occur at regular intervals. Pokey as some of them were, many of these tiny venues added atmosphere to the occasion, as the audience squeezed in to see what the next tent would produce? The signage on every wall was historical and nostalgic, akin to many old signs on the sides of buildings around Melbourne. For a short while one was taken away into another world, completely forgetting where you were.

Several of the acts, however, lacked polish. Granted, it was largely supposed to be a night of fun and entertainment, but at times it was difficult to tell whether a particular act was ridiculing itself from the outset or whether it just wasn’t as good as it should be? There was a sense of uneasiness as comic moments weren’t that funny, while acts like The Living Radio and The Library simply weren’t that interesting.

Given “Carnival Cash” at point of entry meant that everyone in the audience could purchase a ticket to an act of their choice during the show. With only $30,000 to spend, if you were quick you may run out of money before the end. However, the opposite is more likely to occur, as there are too many acts for the time allowed, resulting in left-over cash. The problem, however, was more to do with acts coming and going out of various tents, constantly changing location with performers doubling up with other acts elsewhere. Too bad if you wanted to see the clairvoyant for instance, as her show finished before you could blink, only doing her act once. While on the one level it was interesting to watch the dynamics of strangers in the house giving advice to others about the quality of the act they just witnessed, it also left the door open for some to wander about missing several acts in a row. While a large central area allowed for the entire audience to view certain performances as a whole group, for most of the night everyone’s experiences were different.

But the Carnival of Mysteries lacked purpose and intent. If there was a unifying statement to be made, then I certainly missed it. Although I am confident the acts were meticulously planned and chosen with care, it appeared like they were simply a random collection of “who can do what?”. Consistency in talent and skill among the performers also varied considerably. Nothing in the show was the anticipated “weird and wonderful” and the event was so tame, apart from the odd bare breast nothing offended either. Without shock value, the Carnival of Mysteries became a pedestrian affair.

If you’re not too fussed and just want a good night out with friends, the Carnival of Mysteries should entertain. But if you are the more astute theatre goer you may leave a little disappointed, as this show could have been so much more, with the pre-hype in various print and Internet media outlets more interesting than the show, itself.