Sydney Theatre Thread

[SYD]

STC opened the season with two plays that presumably were intended to bookend Sydney World Pride.

Hubris & Humiliation was light, fluffy and funny but not likely to win a Helpmann award.

Last night we saw Edward Albee’s The Goat, or who is Sylvia? which was hysterical, if not leaving some patrons clutching their pearls. Claudia Karvan was excellent in her first live gig in 25 yrs.

 

[Lynda2475]

Went to Wicked last night at the Lyric which is doing a short run to celebrate its 20th Anniversary on Broadway.

Both leads were fantastic. Courtney Monsma had impeccable comedic timing as Galinda/Glinda and Sheriden Adams had great power and hit every Elphie note perfectly.

It was so refreshing to have a Wizard in Todd McKenny that is animated and actually dances on stage.

Only weak link was Robyn Nevin as Madam Morrible, she was a bit quiet, spoke some lines that are meant to be sung, just needed to project more in her delivery but then had very big shoes to fill as Maggie Kirkpatrick was terrific in the earlier Australian productions.

Great to have the flying monkeys fly right over the audience in the stalls as they did in the original Australia production in Melbourne, this was never possible at the Capitol because of the ceiling being heritage listed they could never have the rigging come out so far.

Standing ovations all round and the two in our party who were Wicked virgins both loved it and said they were flawed at how good it was, neither really knew what to expect.

The 25th Annual Putnum County Spelling Bee is also playing at The Nancy Hayes and worth a look if you havent seen it before - light hearted with a few catchy tunes.

Also hearing good things about the STC's production of The Importance of Being Ernest at the Roslyn Packer Theatre.

 

[Katie]

Catching up on some fun theatre experiences:

Easter in Melbourne

Good Friday night - spur of the moment decision to see Joel Creasey's standup show, bought the tickets in the line to get in. Great fun, appropriately shocked responses from Teen at some jokes. She's 18 in October, so this year, I'm loosening up a bit and realising we can't just open the floodgates to some experiences when she's 18.

Easter Sat night - Groundhog Day - lots of fun, clever ways of restarting the day. Will probably want to see this again sometime, as Mr Katie was peddling pedaling around Belgium. Loved the snow outside the theatre afterwards. Great GF Chinese food at Robo Mao before the show. Helped calm us after being yelled at and physically intimidated by a man at the tram stop outside the Hilton on our way out. The Teen did not like some of our grittier experiences in Melbourne this trip.

Wicked - first time for the Teen, who knows the soundtrack but not the storyline! She LOVED it. Now she understands what some of the songs are about! Going to see it again in Brisbane in Sept.

QT
Gaslight - excellent performance. Gosh I used to think Toby Schmitz was SO hot about 20 or 30 years ago. Thrilling show.
37 - Lots of sportsball. I enjoyed it more than Mr Katie.
Medea - chilling and excellent perspective on the Medea and Jason story. Wonderful stage setting. Those young boys! The actors were great. Mr Katie went on a different night to me, as Medea is in the grade 12 drama curriculum, so he went the same night as the Teen and her class.

Weekend Quickie
The Teen and I flew down to Sydney on Sat to see &Juliet at the Lyric. I was touching base with some theatre friends who had a two show day, but they saw &Juliet at the matinee. If we'd had the same seats and went to the same performance, we would have sat next to each other!
We were in row BB; the stage felt high when we arrived, but I don't think we missed anything from that angle. You definitely need to enjoy recent pop music for this one. Amy Lehpamer had strong Hannah Waddingham/Rebecca Welton vibes, though I felt I so close I could see a colour contrast between her wig line and face. Excellent performance as Anne Hathaway. Keala Settle has replaced Casey Donovan as Nurse; she was brilliant. Blake Appelqvist gave me big Nicholas Hoult vibes. Jacob Razario was May (brilliant) and I think we had Jordan Koulos as Francois. Strong cast. I kept looking for Riley Gill and Coby Njoroge every time they were on stage. Lorinda May Merrypor doesn't seem that she only graduated in 2016.
Glad we made the effort to come down to Sydney for this one. Brisbane really is suffering from only having the Lyric theatre at QPAC for these perfomances. :/

Beauty and the Beast - the Teen went with two grandmas in Brisbane a few weeks ago. The Grandmas know the story, but their children were all upper high school/uni age when the first Disney movie came out ca. 1990. So the show was a surprise for them. Apparently my MIL thought Hugh Jackman would make a great Gaston ...
All three enjoyed the production, Mr Katie and I didn't really want to see it.

 

[Lynda2475]

Consider this a community service announcement:

On Wednesday night I went Sunset Boulevard at the SOH and cannot recommend it.

Firstly I think ALW is generally overrated, his best two musicals imo and the only ones Id go to again are Evita and Starlight Express (which is having a huge revival in the UK, and I have a soft spot as it was the second professional musical I ever saw). Tell Me on a Sunday, School of Rock and Wizard Of Oz are deserving of a single viewing, not so much a repeat.

As usual I went in blind except that I knew the song "As If We Never Said Goodbye" from Glee (

) which as it turns out is the only decent song. And because of my familiarity with Chris Colfer's rendition to hear Sarah Brightman phone it in with no enthusiasm and far too high was just painful.

The positives: Great staging, decent if overly stylized choreography and superb orchestra.

The ok: I felt sorry for the cast that had to sing on ignoring the pathetic performance of the lead. Tim Draxl and Ashleigh Rubenach did well with lackluster material, Robert Grubb (who is usually great) had zero chemistry with Brightman.

The big negative: Sarah Brightman. I thought it odd they cast her as Norma Desmond given the role waswritten for a mezzo-soprano not a soprano. SBs voice was weak, pitchy and occasionally so high im sure only a dog could hear it. Her annunciation was particularly woeful most of the time I was only able to comprehend maybe 1 in 5 words, her acting was listless. I know she is famous for Phantom (a musical i loathe) but she is way past any prime she may have had and should retire. How sad that Opera Australia paid a fortune for her instead of casting local talent with talent.

There is a reason ticket sales have been poor. We were mostly surrounded by foreign tourists from a cruise ship who had bought last minute tickets so they could say they had been to a show at the SOH.

If you do decide to go, get the cheap rush tickets and choose a performance (Tues night or Wed Matinee) where it is guaranteed that Sylvie will be playing the lead. Im utterly convinced absolutely no one could be worse than SB.

 

[MARTINE]

Consider this a community service announcement:

On Wednesday night I went Sunset Boulevard at the SOH and cannot recommend it.

Firstly I think ALW is generally overrated, his best two musicals imo and the only ones Id go to again are Evita and Starlight Express (which is having a huge revival in the UK, and I have a soft spot as it was the second professional musical I ever saw). Tell Me on a Sunday, School of Rock and Wizard Of Oz are deserving of a single viewing, not so much a repeat.

As usual I went in blind except that I knew the song "As If We Never Said Goodbye" from Glee (

) which as it turns out is the only decent song. And because of my familiarity with Chris Colfer's rendition to hear Sarah Brightman phone it in with no enthusiasm and far too high was just painful.

The positives: Great staging, decent if overly stylized choreography and superb orchestra.

The ok: I felt sorry for the cast that had to sing on ignoring the pathetic performance of the lead. Tim Draxl and Ashleigh Rubenach did well with lackluster material, Robert Grubb (who is usually great) had zero chemistry with Brightman.

The big negative: Sarah Brightman. I thought it odd they cast her as Norma Desmond given the role waswritten for a mezzo-soprano not a soprano. SBs voice was weak, pitchy and occasionally so high im sure only a dog could hear it. Her annunciation was particularly woeful most of the time I was only able to comprehend maybe 1 in 5 words, her acting was listless. I know she is famous for Phantom (a musical i loathe) but she is way past any prime she may have had and should retire. How sad that Opera Australia paid a fortune for her instead of casting local talent with talent.

There is a reason ticket sales have been poor. We were mostly surrounded by foreign tourists from a cruise ship who had bought last minute tickets so they could say they had been to a show at the SOH.

If you do decide to go, get the cheap rush tickets and choose a performance (Tues night or Wed Matinee) where it is guaranteed that Sylvie will be playing the lead. Im utterly convinced absolutely no one could be worse than SB.

Very accurate.
I ended up seeing both shows in Melbourne on the same day - SP afternoon session and SB evening.
I had a personal reason for wanting to see SB sing (via my late mother) but was so disappointed as she was miscast and cartoonish in this role. SP was excellent as was Tim Draxl.
I had really wanted to enjoy SB after so long.
I do believe she has a fine voice — but not in this role and a poor reflection of her return to stage unfortunately.

 

[Katie]

I read some awful reviews of Brightman early on, so decided it wasn't worth travelling to see. Not even sure if it's showing in Brisbane.

 

[DejaBrew]

Thanks @Lynda2475 and @MARTINE for your thoughts on this - helped me to decide against getting tickets. Was really tempted by the opportunity to hear SB perform, but such a shame to hear all the negative reviews.

 

[DejaBrew]

Not sure if I should post this here or whether there should be a separate thread, but I went with DejaBrew+1 last night to see Nobuyuki Tsujii in Recital at the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall.

Tsujii-san has been blind since birth and learns scores by ear. And WOW can he play!! Playing to a full house, he performed a 2 hour concert (including intermission) and treated the audience to no less than 4 encores (including a beautiful rendition of Waltzing Matilda)! I don't normally go to these sorts of events, but very glad I made it to this one.

 

[Blackadder]

2025 Sydney Festival program announced.

Explore - Sydney Festival

Explore events for Sydney Festival 2022

www.sydneyfestival.org.au

 

[SYD]

We saw STCs Dear Evan Hansen last night and really enjoyed it.

They’re quite a few nights into the season now and all the cast are doing really well and the production is quite well done on a relatively small stage compared to New York and London productions.

Beau Woodbridge (Evan) is solid and consistent throughout. Yes, he’s not Ben Platt (who really belts out some notes) but he fits and acts/sings the role really well.

 

[Lynda2475]

I went to Dear Evan Hanson at Roslyn Packer Theatre on 22-Oct. I had heard that STC had made changes however that really only related to staging.

When I saw original production in NYC, they had a series of smaller screens showing the social media content. The STC production has two whole of stage digital screens which were layered (the front one being translucent), it was really effective in parts. The rest of the staging very simple, and the lighting helped the focus and mood.

There were no weak links in the 8 person cast. Beau Woodbridge did well as Evan (not annoying like his dad) and Georgia Laga’aia (yes another one of Jay's kids) was perfectly cast as Zoe.

The cast were doing a Q&A after a small break but we didnt stick around for that.

So strange it is such a short run (Oct-Nov) before moving to Melbourne, I think they could have easily sustained a 3 month run given there is nothing else new on atm and the theatre size. Seems poor planning they didn't give themselves an option to extend.

Worth seeing if there are any stray tickets still available. It goes to Melbourne and then Canberra.

 

[Lynda2475]

I went to Promises Promises at the Hayes tonight and thoroughly enjoyed it. The production was one of their neglected musicals.

Neglected Musicals is a theatre initiative dedicated to presenting a musical theatre that has never (or rarely) been seen in Australia. The musicals are presented with scripts in hand, and with piano accompaniment after only a day’s rehearsal. There have been 27 Neglected Musicals presentation since 2010.

Based on the 1960 film The Apartment, starring Shirley MacLaine and Jack Lemmon, Promises, Promises follows a young junior executive at an insurance company, who seeks to climb the corporate ladder by allowing his apartment to be used for trysts by his married superiors. With all the wonderful Bacharach and David songs you love, including ‘Say A Little Prayer’, ‘A House Is Not A Home’, ‘I’ll Never Fall In Love Again’ and ‘Promises Promises’.

It was funny and heartfelt, great performances all round, although the piano was quite loud in parts so would have been better if performers had mics (being a small theatre they are rarely mic'ed at the Hayes).

I've always loved both Chris Colfer's (Glee) and Kristen Chenoweth's (Broadway) version of A House is not a Home, so it was nice to se it in its original context.

There is one more show tomorrow, recommend if there are any seats remaining.