THEATRE BY FRANK McKONE (DINKUS)
28th Old Time Music Hall 2002. Canberra Repertory at The Playhouse, June 13-22, 8pm.
Director Cathie Clelland and choreographer Katelyn Keys have dragged this show into the modern world this year - a bit of a worry because it might go on for another 28 years.
Music Hall is an annual ritual which at times in the past has been both a pale imitation of the original specifically English genre, and also too close to the sexism and sentimentality of a century ago. This year's show deftly fillets the sexist bones from the traditional material, and surprisingly achieves genuine sentiment. A highlight is the presentation of the song Broken Doll by Julie McElhone Hayes as a puppet. "You made me think you loved me in return: / Don't tell me you were fooling after all! / For if you turn away, you'll be sorry some day / You left behind a broken doll" was so quietly and poignantly sung, with strings attached, that no man in the audience could sit there unashamed.
It was good to see the multicultural section - an ethnic Aussie dance scene, The Snake Gully Swagger, with embarrassing reminders for me of the Tibooburra Hospital Ball circa 1963, where the band consisted of piano, trumpet and drums and every dance was played in 3/4 time. The sense of fun, irony and even true satire has filled in all the gaps of Music Hall as I've experienced it before, and indeed the rendition late in the show of musical director Andrew Kay's The Bliss of the Backyard Burkes showed that satirical commentary on our present lives is more than acceptable in this almost ceremonial event. The representation of Parliament House as the one feature which broke the prime rule of Marion and Walter that nothing should be built on hills, topped by an amazing tableau revealing a definitely loopy National Museum drew perhaps the most enthusiastic response of the audience on Friday.
The band has also expanded: piano, piano and drums. But unlike my Tibooburra friends, Pauline Sweeney, Andrew Kay and Dick Cutler are wonderful musicians and have the acoustics of the Playhouse completely under control. Even through my ageing tinnitus I could hear every singer clearly.
An excellent entertainment this year, already well-booked for the season.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
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