Return to Hollywood

Sunset Boulevard at TheQ was a strange experience. I was taken by the performance. This was seriously capable and well presented and I've only today heard that they are local performers. I'm immensely impressed. I didn't like the real Sunset Boulevard when I was there recently, but there was a mention of street number 10,093 (?) so it's long and it run through hills so there must be salubrious areas than we frequented. I also didn't like the musical. I felt the book (script) was trivial and the music was repetitive (I think it was at the start of the second half that there was an overture and it seemed to only have two themes). One theme for the old actress / toy boy and another for the young writers couple. This may be composition by leitmotif and you certainly knew who was on stage, but it's not adventurous. I laughed when the central character is shot, it being so sudden and unexpected (especially as the killer had earlier attempted suicide). It felt decidedly lunchtime-TV with obvious dialogue and I didn't notice any obvious wit (I heard the Sound of Music script today and it's not high intellectual entertainment but even it has some nifty innuendoes). Maybe it's just me (no lover of either film or celebrity), because the Andrew Lloyd-Webber musical won a swag of awards (Tonys for Best Musical, Best Original Score, Best Book and lots more) and it has an extensive and successful international performance history. But I look at the list of tunes and I didn't know any before and not much after. Much of the singing was conversational (recitative?) but I noted at least three feature songs, for Joe and Norma and Max. I found the stage set fabulous with the orchestra glowing backstage. Joe Gillis (the central writer character) seemed immensely well performed, both in terms of voice and character. The key women around Joe (faded, eccentric silent actress seeking comeback, Norma Desmond, and emergent writer, Betty Schaefer) both played parts and sang very well. Strangely, Cecil B DeMille makes an appearance. The music was an obvious challenge to perform and I was impressed by the quality of performance. So, in the end, my take was great performance of little interesting musical. Many musical goers wouldn't agree (but several mates at the theatre did). Congrats on a wonderful performance.

Sunset Boulevard (music by Andrew Lloyd-Webber music; lyrics by Don Black and Christopher Hampton) was performed at TheQ. Amongst many others involved were Stephen Pike (director), Sharon Tree (musical director), Bronwyn Sullivan (Norma Desmond), Daniel Wells (Joe Gillis), Peter Dark (Max von Meyerling) and Vanessa de Jager (Betty Schaefer).

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).