Win one, lose one

Not everyone did, but I lost on this one. We went to see “I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change” at the Q Theatre in Queanbeyan. We’d decided on the spur of the moment after overhearing someone at SCUNA saying how good it was and that Lucy Bermingham was musical director (I hadn’t heard her for some time). I should have looked more closely. The promotion had me dreading it by the time we walked in (“After watching this outstanding performance you will walk out feeling that nobody is perfect … and that is OK”). This is an Off-Broadway musical that ran for 5,003 performances (1996-2008) – apparently the longest run of any off-Broadway musical. It runs 2 hours plus interval. It’s a series of skits, each with a song, covering modern romantic (urban heterosexual) life: dating, mating, marriage, kids, divorce, old age. It’s funny, but in an American pop-commercial way which seems somewhat sordid to me. I feel much American humour is humour of denigration. It’s common enough on commercial TV but I don’t like it. There were popular memes, desperate characters, “losers”, stereotypes. It was also somewhat crass at times (condoms; couple with young kids yearning for sex) which is also common in popular culture. I wondered if it’s unavoidable in discussions of mating (it certainly seems to be these days) but then I remember the great era of Hollywood, with its wit and whimsy, that did perfectly well with hints and intimations and was more clever and deeper in the process. This work touches on real themes, but to my ears it doesn’t say much about them. Perhaps the second half is better, where the couples break up, the divorcees rethink their lives and the aged carry on with acceptance and wisdom. It’s not all bad, but I found it hard to warm to it after early disappointments.

But what’s good? The music was varied, and the styles matched the themes, like the single woman singing “Always the bridesmaid, never the bride” as a Country tune. How apt is that. I really liked the cast and their performance. This is presumably a semi-professional group of performers, but they did a grand job. Good to very good voices; well acted, with verve and humour; nicely lit and laid out. Also, the music was good if the orchestra was very small. I wonder if the original was performed this way? Only Lucy Birmingham, on piano, who did most of the work, with occasional violin melodies and a very quiet bass. In all, just 9 performers: three men, three women, three musicians.

I’m writing about how I received it, but not everyone felt the same. I chatted with a woman next to me at interval, and she suggested it’s just a flimsy and (in a nice way) that I could lighten up. Fair comment. I went with Megan and Bob and Anne and they enjoyed it well enough and sympathised with the difficulties of post-modern, urban mating. Yep, I could see that, too. A few blokes belly laughed, especially at the scene of the divorcee doing a video for a dating agency. That had amusing twists, but it was also one of the more honest and heartrending scenes of the show. I warmed to the old man and woman meeting at the funeral parlour (at funerals of people they didn’t know) who got together with the line “I can live with that”. So perhaps you should judge for yourself. Certainly the cast deserves the audience.

“I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change” was presented by the Queanbeyan City Council at the Q (Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre). Stephen Pike directed. The cast was Dave Evans, Jenna Roberts, Christine Forbes, Greg Sollis, Krystle Innes and Nick Valois. The band was Lucy Bermingham (piano, musical director), Vanessa Driver (violin) and Jason Henderson (bass).

Two for tea

Their names appear pretty frequently around the traps, so I made the trek to the other side of town to hear Rachel Thorne and Lucy Bermingham at Adore Tea. Both of them have strong professional backgrounds, including in Army bands, so you can expect professional competence which is a high accolade in my book. I’d heard Rachel years back and was much impressed and I remember the gig well. I’d missed Lucy performing an Eva Cassidy tribute at Vivaldi’s but I caught her as a singer at Llewellyn Hall. This day she was on piano.

The tunes were the old standards so nothing particularly new there, but the accompaniment was sturdy and eminently reliable, and the vocals were capable and inventive. The first tune on my arrival was Nature boy. How can you not fall for that tune? Then into a string of cycles and melodies that define this era of popular music: I’ve got you under my skin, Our love is here to stay, Autumn leaves. I even enjoyed that 50s-kitsch Danke schön. It’s not a song I love, but I enjoyed this rendition with seductive glissandi leaning in to the notes that started each phrase. I’d already taken note of various jazz vocal conventions that Rachel had performed with admirable ease: playing with time by anticipating and delaying lines of melody, various chromatic movements and some harmonic alterations. All done as understated melodic inventions. Lovely stuff. She sang scat, too, which is of this tradition. Then on through light swingers and latins like Fools rush in and Fly me to the moon and Sway, and more depth with God bless the child. It was admirable singing and I enjoyed it immensely. But I’m being unfair on Lucy, because her role was essential to support Rachel’s front line. Her eyes were obviously following the charts closely but this was well improvised: a solid and reliable accompaniment with no hesitation that I noticed. Left hand bass, relaxed swings, understated solos, frequent changes of feels and grooves and moods all featured. It was a relaxed little gig for a Sunday afternoon audience, but there were real skills and alluring interpretations. Very nice.

Rachel Thorne (vocals) and Lucy Bermingham (piano) played at Adore Tea for its free Sunday afternoon jazz sessions.

Canberra cantata (Sat 1)

First of a double bill for this Saturday was the Canberra Cantata. It’s a new work in cabaret style. Not a serious, staid cantata with glorious rising choral work, but a joyful, tongue in cheek look at Canberra from a local cabaret star, and featuring some well-known local names. Peter J Casey was the composer and presenter, and a pianist and singer for several tunes. The other performers ranged widely indeed.

The show started with the Royal Military College (acronym: RMC) All Stars Big Band and continued with 13 tunes played by a rich range of artists. The Canberra Youth Choir sang a tune composed to the words of a local primary school student, Keean Walton, a paen to Canberra life called “I love where I live”. Natalie Magee teamed with Peter J Casey and the RMC band for a skit on Northside/Southside rivalries. The Singing Ambassadors (as far as I know, these were 12 real, honest ambassadors) sang about their appointments to Canberra in a song called “Tiger look at this”. They obviously enjoyed their unison singalong, and carried it off with aplomb. A classical trio (Suzanne Powell, piano; Anne Ewing, cello; Nicole Canham, clarinet) played the “Roundabout rondo”, dedicated to roundabouts on Canberra roads: nice one. The Gay and Lesbian Qwuire sang a deliciously beautiful love song written for same-sex marriages called “For all of us”. The RMC Band played a rousing big band tune with shouts of Canberra acronyms, appropriately called “TLA” (=Three Letter Acronym). John Shortis and Moya Simpson performed a tune dedicated to “Stasia the Soup Lady”, an institution in Canberra for many years. Lucy Bermingham, Moya Simpson and classical soprano Louise Page jokingly sang “Don’t make me choose” (between the Brumbies and the Raiders). Peter J Casey himself sang a tune about writing and performing the cantata, complete with a topical reference. Louise Page teamed again with Suzanne Powell and Nicole Canham on a tender piece (“Beautiful”) that spoke of the cockies that appeared in Canberra after the fires of a few years back. Four names were memorialised (Alison, Peter, Douglas, Dorothy), presumably the four lost in our local disaster. More happily, Queenie Van de Zandt sang with the RMC band about Canberrans making their names overseas but returning (We move back home). The show ended with a lively bash from the Big Band, with a string of solos, including Reuben Lewis who was sitting in on trumpet, and a wonderful, rolling drum solo from Amanda Waite, who I reported playing with Zip in my first post on CJBlog.

The other star of the show was the Llewelyn Hall. It’s been refurbished after a lengthy repair and restoration following a damaging hailstorm over a year ago. The new hall is decked with soft timbers and raked seating, to give improved wood infected acoustic and better audience ambience. It sounded rich and sweet to me, although there was a good bit obviously passing through the PA on the day. Being free and part of the Canberra International Music Festival, it was well attended by families young and old, again typically Canberran. I had a nursing mother on one side with a cute 12 week old girl and a toddler behind me continuingly observing the bebe (=baby), bebe, bebe, bebe…. A very pleasant event, and an opportunity to hear these singers and musicians I miss in the core jazz scene. Much enjoyed.