Falling Stars

I've spent years deliberately not listening to songs from Hadestown, not watching clips of Hadestown, and avoiding spoilers for Hadestown. Because I knew I wanted to see it one day. (I guess it fell into that middle zone of me being invested enough to want to be unspoiled, but not so invested that I had to check it out right away.)

Anyway. It finally came to Australia! I saw it at the Theatre Royal in Sydney, and later it will move to Her Majesty's Theatre in Melbourne.

Was it worth the wait? Totally! I loved it from the very first moment. Me, I'm the audience for this.


Expectations

What I knew going in:

1) It's based on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, but in a modern day setting, with Hades as a company town.

2) The music is kind of jazz and folk?

3) People have opinions about the Act 1 closing number.


The cast

Everyone was awesome. I always think it's a shame that we rarely get Australian cast recordings, because there's so much talent here. And sometimes this is the version I want to listen to over and over at home.

* Hermes - One reason I was excited about this production, was that the headliner was Christine Anu, living legend. She was fantastic as the narrator Hermes. (I also loved that she got to use her Australian accent!)

* Eurydice - Abigail Adriano was Kim in a recent Miss Saigon production. So you know she can bring it. And she did. Intensity, and the ache of a cynic who starts to believe.

* Orpheus - Whenever you're trying to convey a character who's the best singer in the world, you've got a lot to live up to. Noah Mullins gave Orpheus a sincerity and vulnerability that really stood out. I could believe his singing could make the stones weep.

* Persephone - Elenoa Rokobaro lit up the stage whenever she appeared, bringing the vibrant energy of spring, and the underlying strength.

* Hades - Adrian Tamburini is an opera singer! A deep bass voice fits Hades perfectly. Also made an interesting contrast to Orpheus's lighter and higher voice.


The story

A lot of stuff happened! But this is what I had the most feelings about.

( Spoilers )


Final thoughts

To the world we dream about
and the one we live in now

I just keep thinking. About Orpheus's song. About the story and its themes. Art can change the world. Art can show you how the world could be. You have to dream it before you can make it happen. But it's hard to think about those things when you've starving and cold. It benefits those in power to keep you starving and cold, because then you don't have the time and energy to think about anything else. It feels like you don't have the luxury for art then. But imagining another possibility is the first step in changing the status quo. The human capacity for hope is persistent. As humans, we keep on dreaming, even when it seems impossible, maybe especially when it seems impossible. We keep on dreaming that it could be different. Maybe this time.

No matter how many times history smacks us down, humans keep asking, "Yeah, but what if?"

Anyway. Not just a banging musical. Hadestown, everyone.


A random comment online

"I tried the 'Orpheus Challenge' in a Costco with my boyfriend and made it like 15 feet before looking because I was so scared to just leave him behind in a busy ass Costco"


Australian trailer

I fell in love with the title song years ago, on some Andrew Lloyd Webber compilation album - its mix of cold cynicism and broken idealism and sweeping dramatics. On the strength of that one song, the musical has been vaguely on my "to watch" list ever since.

So when I heard about a new production - with Sarah Brightman! - I was there.

It was at the Sydney Opera House, in the Joan Sutherland Theatre, and tickets for this were pricey so I chose to sit right up the back. While I had a great view of the lavish sets and costuming, the faces of the performers were mostly blobs. But I was there for the singing, and nothing was wrong with the acoustics.

Sarah Brightman was the OG Christine in Phantom of the Opera, and after all these decades, she's still got it. It's pretty ironic that her character here is a silent film star who became irrelevant with the talkies, when her voice is incredible, while her expressions were lost on me in the back row.

The whole cast was excellent. But I had trouble engaging with the musical for a big chunk of it. Part of it was the style - I've been mostly watching more modern musicals lately, and it was hard to switch gears into something old school. And part of it was that the story was pretty depressing - a struggling writer who thinks he's lost his chance of making it, and a fading actress who thinks her terrible script is any good. As someone wrestling with creative issues and doubts, it hit kind of close to home.

But when the story took a turn for the gothic, I was suddenly much more interested.

( Spoilers )


"Sunset Boulevard" - Tim Draxl as Joe Gillis




"As If We Never Said Goodbye" - Sarah Brightman as Norma Desmond

I'd never heard of this musical before, but apparently it became a viral hit during lockdown? So when the Hayes Theatre put it on several weeks back, I thought it would be worth checking out.

The premise is that six teenagers wind up in limbo after a fatal accident on an amusement park ride - and have to compete in a singing competition for the chance for one of them to return to life.

I had no idea what to expect - was it going to be a downer, or at least bittersweet, or was there any hope of it being ultimately uplifting?

Overall, it was a fairly enjoyable experience. Though it was unsettling to see the characters in school uniforms, which emphasised just how young they were.

It worked well as one act with no intermission. Each character got a song, where we learned about them and their hopes and dreams, and they also revealed more of themselves through their interactions between songs.

Highlights for me were:

* "Noel's Lament" - Noel doesn't want to sing about his unglamorous job at Taco Bell, but about his fantasy alter ego, Monique Gibeau, a tragic prostitute in post-war France. Melodramatic and funny.

* "Space Age Bachelor Man" - Ricky's song about his own fantasy life of being the saviour of sexy alien cat people. Fun and inventive.

* "The Ballad of Jane Doe" - Jane's song about not knowing who she is or what her life was. Haunting and dramatic. (Apparently in the original production, she flies on stage? Here, they used revolving mirrors to create a sense of illusion, and it worked really well.)

( Spoilers )

A new Australian musical! (Not to be confused with Zombies: The Musical, which is a totally unrelated franchise.)

I will go see anything that Laura Murphy has written, after her amazing work on The Lovers and The Dismissal. Along with Yve Blake (Fangirls) and Vidya Makan (The Lucky Country), this makes it an exciting time for women writing musicals in Australia, and telling the stories they want to tell.

Zombie! The Musical, premiering at the Hayes Theatre, definitely feels like a story with something to say. Set in Sydney on the eve of the millennium, a community theatre company is preparing for opening night. And then a strange infection starts to spread, turning people into zombies...

The three main characters are women - described as "an ambitous starlet, an optimistic understudy, and an ol' hoofer (who thought she'd seen it all)" - who have to face this unexpected crisis in their different ways.


Things I love

* The banging songs.

* The '90s nostalgia. (Nokia phones! Y2K! The modem sound!)

* The in-jokes about musicals. ("If Andrew Lloyd Webber can do it...")

* The punny jokes. ("We have to find Hope!" "What if she's been infected?" "Then we have to abandon Hope!")

* The Australian jokes. ("If only we had guns to kill the zombies!" "Damn you, John Howard!" /s)

* The commentary about roles for women in musicals.

* The power of musical theatre (and friendship!) to save the world.


Things I don't love

That there is no cast recording!

It's tough being a fan of a brand new musical. You can't listen to the songs again. You can't look up the lyrics. You can't tell people, "Check this out!" because there's nowhere to point them to.

However! The Hayes Theatre is fundraising for a cast recording, so fingers crossed that it happens!


( Spoilery highlights )


Anyway, here are two of the songs on YouTube:


Meaty Part
(Stefanie Jones as Felicity and Natalie Abbott as Sam)

But it's the same old story
It's the same old song
And they all taught me where I don't belong
But I'll prove them wrong




Put Up A Fight
(Nancy Denis as Trace)

Pushed past the point of no return
She gave them what they all deserve
But without the gift of telekinesis
I would have to use my fists

The only thing I knew about If/Then was that it was a "sliding doors" story. But that was enough to hook me. Oh, and it was originally a Broadway hit, starring Idina Menzel. Which made it a surprising pick for a Neglected Musicals production. But anyway. I went to see it at the Hayes Theatre.

It was an enthralling experience. Partly because of how the barebones way it was performed made it feel timeless, and partly because the theme of "what if" feels so timely at this point in my life.

Almost every musical this year, I keep thinking, "This is the best musical I've seen all year!" But they just keep raising the bar.


( The staging )

( The story )

( The songs )

( The cast )

( Night Watch quote )

'Best thing on stage in the world right now': & Juliet finally heads to Sydney

Earlier this year, the Michael Cassel group announced that after a successful run in Melbourne, the hit Broadway show & Juliet would skip Sydney and instead move to the Sands Theatre in Singapore.

Almost immediately, the question on everyone’s lips in the Harbour City was: Wherefore art thou, & Juliet?

In welcome news for the city’s art scene, the Michael Cassel group has confirmed & Juliet will move to Sydney’s Lyric Theatre in February 2024, after a spectacular sold-out season in Melbourne.

!!!

Argh. I ended up going down to Melbourne to see this, after dithering about it for ages. But it's all good, I guess? Gonna spend the next six months banging the drum for & Juliet with everyone I know.

On the one hand, I'm not usually into jukebox musicals - I prefer songs that are original and new. But on the other hand, when the songs are all No 1 hits of the last three decades - well, that sounds pretty irresistible.

"What if Juliet had lived?" is also pretty irresistible.

Just the trailer hooked me enough, that I went down to Melbourne to see & Juliet, at the Regent Theatre. I wish it would have come to Sydney, but apparently there's a shortage of theatre venues that aren't already booked. So when it finishes its current run, instead of touring the other cities, it'll be heading overseas.

I'm glad I saw it! It looked like a good time, and it was indeed a good time. It was cheesy and earnest and incredibly fun.

( Spoilery musings )

This is the original West End trailer that made me fall in love with it:



This is the Australian trailer with the awesome local cast:

I was meant to see Come From Away in 2020. It was coming to the State Theatre in Sydney, after a successful run in Melbourne. I was intrigued by the premise, I'd heard good things about it, and I was excited to get to see it.

It didn't make it to the State Theatre in 2020. A lot of things didn't happen that year. A lot of other things did.

Then it came to the Capitol Theatre in 2021. And so did the omicron wave.

Then it reopened at the Theatre Royal in 2022. And finally, a few weeks ago, I got to see it at last.

Come From Away is a musical, inspired by the true story of a small town called Gander in Newfoundland, right after 9/11, when 38 planes with 7000 people were suddenly diverted there. It's about a community coming together, and the friendships that formed, and hope in a dark time.

The musical was exactly what I hoped it would be. I saw a great comment that sums it up: "For me it's about how it sets out to do a very specific thing - show the intensity and chaos of those few days - and nails the brief 100%."

It was cathartic.

One of the best decisions is to run the musical all in one act, unbroken by intermission, to better convey that intensity and chaos. Twelve performers switch between multiple roles, playing the parts of both the locals and the visitors. It's an ensemble show, following several intertwining stories, illuminating the different experiences of different people.

The songs were catchy and memorable. Highlights included the fiercely defiant "Welcome to the Rock", the achingly poignant "I Am Here", the showstopper "Me and the Sky", and the haunting and reflective "Something's Missing".

It was kind of weird watching it on the other side of a pandemic. (Not literally on the other side, since we're still in it, but you know what I mean.) Just extra layers of resonance: the sense of ordinary life before, everything changing suddenly, and the way we all have to find our way through that moment. But maybe it's just the same kind of thing repeating over and over in human history - times of crisis, and how we feel, and how we respond.

And how sometimes we need to express that shared experience: to say, you are here, and you are not alone.

A live recording of the Broadway stage production is available on Apple TV+.

I love a good musical. Even an imaginary musical.

If there's one thing we know for sure, it's that a great novel is a spectacular foundation for a musical extravaganza. Oliver! Matilda! Les Miserables! Mary Poppins! Sadly, not every beloved story becomes a famous musical. Some of Australia's finest songwriters have uncovered lost songs from the greatest literary adaptations you've never heard.

Musical Fictions was an event by the Sydney Writers' Festival, held last night at Sydney Town Hall. I went because of Casey Bennetto, the writer and composer of Keating!, one of my favourite ever musicals.

So here's the idea. Seven songwriters each get to pick a book - any book - and write a song for a musical inspired by it. Three singers and four musicians bring them to life on stage. Anything goes - if they all pick the same book, so be it. (As it turned out, there were two double ups.)

While the book selection turned out to be more literary than my own tastes, the songs were creatively written and explored a range of tones, and the performances were excellent. It made me appreciate - once again - the power of song to cut right through to the heart of a character, and lay bare their distilled emotions. Highlights:

* Crime and Punishment - The song is what the songwriter wishes he could say to Raskolnikov, if he got to persuade him not to kill the pawnbroker and just take a pleasant walk along the river together. There's black humour in contrasting the dark subject matter with bright upbeat music.

* The Adventures of Pusscat Wizzy Willums - This is a lift-the-flap picture book about a stray cat looking for a home, that was the songwriter's childhood favourite. The song is a duet between the stray cat and a lonely widow, who both (spoiler alert!) may end up finding what they need by the end of the book. Bonus points for Mike McLeish wearing cat ears for his part.

* The Slap - The song is what the mother of the child imagines what she would say, if she got to take the stand at the trial of the man who slapped him. It did that amazing thing where you get to feel both sympathy and repulsion for a character, and then also get that punch of revelatory backstory - in just two lines - that explains so much about them.

* The Bell Jar - The song is about the fig tree! I've never read the book, but I always think about the metaphor of the fig tree. Even more memorable in song.

Other songs were based on: Heart of Darkness, Catch-22, To Kill a Mockingbird, and two of Helen Garner's memoirs. I wish they had given us a program, so I could keep track of who wrote and sang what songs. Anyway, the website says:

* Songwriters: Tim Rogers, Angie Hart, Dean Bryant & Mathew Frank, Simon Hall, Jude Perl, Gillian Cosgriff.

* Performers: Casey Bennetto, Virginia Gay, Mike McLeish, Natalie Abbott, and the house band.

Just as genderswapped song performances have become a thing, I would love to see musical fictions become a thing too.

Five and a half years since I first heard the cast recording. Two years since the show was announced for Australia. Nine months since I booked tickets. Three months since the show opened in Sydney. And several days of checking the news for if we were going to go into lockdown again.

Finally, finally, today.

It still doesn't feel quite real.

( Thoughts )