Lovers of musical theatre should not miss this unusually poignant hidden gem
By Cameron Woodhead
MUSICAL
Elegies: A Song Cycle ★★★★
By William Finn, fortyfivedownstairs, until July 21
Big-ticket commercial musicals dominate Melbourne’s East End theatre district. They’re easy to find. For musical theatre connoisseurs, however, there are often hidden gems on the indie scene and Elegies: A Song Cycle is one.
Much-loved actor Nadine Garner gives a masterclass in her sharp evocation of an unabashedly elitist English teacher.Credit: Ben Fon
The debut from new company Clovelly Fox, formed by artistic director Tyran Parke, offers a moving and memorable production of a song cycle written by William Finn, the Broadway composer behind Falsettos and The 25th Annual Putnam Spelling Bee.
It’s an unusually poignant and autobiographical suite of songs, guided by memory and emotion rather than narrative, layering a lament for lost friends and relations and colleagues (and even pets) with tenderness and humour, weaving intimate personal recollections and anecdotes into the collective experience of loss.
The latter includes the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, approached through the eyes of an architect, and the tragic initial phase of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, accessed through memories of creative vitality and community, of friends who died of the disease before life-saving treatments became available.
Memoir-like sketches of characters and episodes drawn from life are especially vivid, in the hands of a luxurious cast who handle the material with sensitivity and a lightness of touch. They seem to relish the chance (not always available in blockbuster musicals) to flex their muscles acting through song.
Much-loved actor Nadine Garner gives a masterclass in her sharp evocation of an unabashedly elitist English teacher, facing death and finding solace in the firm knowledge that she has passed on her love of literature to students who could keep up with her.
Elegies features an unusually poignant and autobiographical suite of songs.Credit: Ben Fon
She’s also great opposite Kerrie Anne Greenland in another literary song, Dear Reader, an antagonistic duet between a reader and a novelist satirising certain ambivalences between artist and audience.
The rest of the cast – Anton Berezin, Glenn Hill, Marty Alix – each have highlights, and Alix is particularly funny performing a joke song about the tortured devotions of doglove, but it’s the free-flowing ensemble performance that lingers.
Elegant set design, uplifting choric interludes, restrained movement that never resorts to stage business, the seamless way each performer shares the role of narrator/composer – everything seems to click under Parke’s direction.
It’s easy to imagine Elegies performed concert-style for the songs or being reduced to sentimentality in an undisciplined production. This new company delivers a fully realised theatrical experience that should gladden the hearts of more discerning musical theatre fans.
Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead
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