Search
Sponsors
User login
Latest Auditions
-
Mockingbird Theatre
-
SLAMS
-
Eltham Little Theatre
-
ARC Theatre
-
Ignition Entertainment
Sweet Charity
Submitted by Tyler hess on Thursday, 10th Feb 2011
Date of Show:
Friday, 4th February 2011 (All day)
Venue:
Playhouse Theatre Geelong Performing Arts Centre Sweet Charity, originally premiered in 1966 and after multiple Broadway revivals it has become a staple for almost every school, community, and local professional theatre company. It’s vibrant design, brassy score and Fosse-inspired choreography frame the overly cliché themes – it really is all about the visual.
Cara Oliver as Charity
Footlight’s February staging of this flower-power classic is a solid introduction to the Geelong theatre season. For those out of the know, Sweet Charity follows the sweet Charity and her bittersweet tale as a dance hall hostess doomed to romantic cycles of endless hope and perpetual disappointment in 1960’s New York.
Revered director Bryce Ives has pieced together a quality production that is not so much a sum of its exceptional parts, but the result of crafty choices and consistent attention to all facets of theatre creation.
Adhering to the traditional, non-naturalistic production concept, Ives creates a warm theatre experience for the audience from the moment they are invited into the theatre. Extending the lighting design to the theatre’s dress circle, and thrusting the performers into the audience on multiple occasions not only encourages the seedy and intrusive feeling of the fandango dance hall, but provided the audience with various focal points.
Appreciatively, Ives has paid much attention to ensuring a fluid production (and by fluid, I mean attempting to overlap scenes with minimal transition time, not the flooding of the GPAC foyer). The direction of the congregation scene at the “Rhythm of Life” church was a particular standout for me as was the lively ensemble filled with a number of well-defined cameo performances. That said, there were a number of dialogue scenes that lacked pace and appeared a little under-guided, particularly between Vittorio and Ursula and later in act two between Charity and Oscar.
Musical Director John Shawcross and his orchestra of talented players delivered the difficult and lengthy orchestrations with ease, playing from the moment the house opened.
It’s important to remember that Sweet Charity is primarily a dance piece (Fosse directed and choreographed the 1969 film version with Shirley MacClaine). Jordan Punsalang has yet again demonstrated considerable attention to the entire piece. The stylish Fosse-inspired routines were generally sharp and well rehearsed from the intoning "Big Spender," performed by the deadpan girls at the Fandango Ballroom, to the infamous, multi-sectioned “Frug.” Punsalang is one of the very few fortunate choreographers to work consistently with strong male dancers. Despite the routine being energetic and vocal, “Something Better Than This” was unfortunately a let down in the choreography stakes, due to either a lack of dance ability or rehearsal.
Andrew Bell Chambers’ set design consisted primarily of a large black and white circular wall revolving into a staircase structure and a sweeping wall filled with convex shaped patterns occupying prompt side of stage. In addition to these statures, smaller, more naturalistic set pieces were introduced to detail the vignettes. Despite appearing very weighty, the large pieces were angled and moved smoothly around the stage, providing differing acting spaces, levels, and framing a different feel for each new setting.
Sweet Charity begs for a lighting design that capitalises on the entire gamut of patterns, shapes and colours. Lighting designer Shane Hough projected an artistic design with an apparent 1960’s influence, without becoming too cliché. Cues were well timed and certainly layered the space, with excellent use of alternative light sources such as the torches and combi van headlights in “Rhythm of Life.” However at times the lighting was dark and lacking in justification (e.g. overusing the decal in internal settings). The back slash curtain appeared to be underused -- complimenting it with cyc and front lighting rather than relying on its lone presence to deliver an effect would have provided additional pizzazz to the scenes. However the highlight, or should I say lowlight of the evening’s lighting cues, came from mother nature, blacking out the theatre and leaving Nicki and Helene to perform “Baby Dream Your Dream” so graciously in the dark.
The costume design by Ferri Bond encapsulated the 1960’s era well, reminding the audience of the strong influence the period plays in current fashion trends. From the hyper colour fandango girls to the monochromatic “Frug” sequence, Bond’s design was a weave of her own style, whilst replicating the traditional costuming that audiences are familiar with for the show.
The shows ensemble radiated fun, and some promising performances shone through. Sarah Power and Zoe McDonald as Nicki and Helene respectively were perfectly cynical, providing life to the Fandango numbers and delivering a wonderful vocal duet. Albeit performing on a stage with no light (due to the blackout) the performers continued to invest energy into the number. Brad Beales as Herman brought a polished performance, and David Ward’s smooth vocals and endearing portrayal of Oscar Lindquist was memorable although I felt he was a little too guided through some of his more comedic moments.
David Mackay as Vittorio Vidal, gave a very modest but charming portrayal of the usual self-obsessed, and vain character, whilst Reyna Hudgell as Ursula projected a rather bland interpretation of her character.
Our open–hearted sweet Charity for the evening was Cara Oliver. Oliver looked visually stunning on stage, whilst her contagious optimism and fresh-faced disposition was not dissimilar to Christina Appelgate’s realization of the character in the more recent Broadway revival cast. Although Oliver didn’t possess the dance flair required for the role and her vocals on opening night being a little pitchy, she definitely won the audience over with her storytelling capabilities and a performance filled with panache.
Footlight Productions are developing a strong reputation for assembling recipes for success in staging quality theatre. If Sweet Charity has set the tone for what is to expect in the amateur circuit this coming year, audiences should expect a strong 2011 season.
Tyler has performed in a range of Musical Theatre work in both Warrnambool and Melbourne. Having worked with a number of Melbourne companies performing a number of principle roles, he has received several nominations from the MTGV and Lyrebirds. He has directed and designed Bye Bye Birdie and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels; productions that collectively earned more than 20 nominations from the MTGV and Lyrebirds. Tyler will be playing Seymour in PTC’s Little Shop of Horrors later this year.
State:
VIC