DREAM LOVER

By Diana Simmonds

October 7 2016

DREAM LOVER - The Bobby Darin Musical, Sydney Lyric Theatre, The Star; 7 October-27 November 2016. Photography by Brian Geach, above: Harriet Frederickson and David Campbell; right: David Campbell and company and “Mack the Knife”

The story of Bobby Darin is made for dramatic and musical telling: growing up poor in the Bronx with a single mother, big sister and his dreams of one day singing as well as Frank Sinatra. 

And there’s a whole lot more besides. 

From the very beginning Darin – born Walden Robert Cassotto – was unpromising material for major stardom. Weedy, sickly (childhood rheumatic fever) and plain, he was nevertheless possessed of huge energy, determination and talents. He was a decent singer who honed his style and delivery with Sinatra-like resolve (and results).

He was a fine songwriter whose string of million-sellers began with the poppy “Splish Splash” in 1958. He made movies and was nominated for the Golden Globes and won once; he was nominated for a Best Support Oscar in 1963 when he played a shell-shocked GI in Captain Newman MD. He wanted to do it all and he did.

At 24 he met 18-year-old starlet Sandra Dee on the set of Come September in which the big stars were Rock Hudson and Gina Lollobrigida. He declared he and Sandy would be married and they were, much to her mother’s fury. Their only child Dodd was born within a year. They divorced seven years later but remained close until Bobby’s death at age 37. 

And once again, there’s a whole lot more besides.

Australian actor-singer-entertainer David Campbell has been fascinated by Darin for years and jumped at the chance to play him in this new musical by “original concept and stage play” writers Frank Howson and John Michael Howson.

How fortunate they are to have Campbell in the lead role. He is a light-footed, subtle, charismatic and powerful presence at the heart of a company of fine musical theatre performers. That the show works as well as it does is almost entirely due to the calibre of them and the on-stage big band (musical director Daniel Edmonds). 

The script itself (JMH would once have spluttered at it not being called “the book”) is mostly pedestrian, sometimes banal and occasionally mawkish. It tells the chosen story in some three hours including interval that, in the second half in particular, feel much longer. 

The action is resolutely chronological and hops from episode to episode with a lack of balance and narrative judgement that jars when it isn’t downright icky. For instance, assassinated Senator Robert Kennedy’s flag-draped coffin is the cue for Darin to deliver the Bricusse/Newley power ballad, “Who Can I Turn To (When Nobody Needs Me)?” And then there's the fragment of Martin Luther King's "I had a dream..." speech. What?

Has it been mentioned so far that this is a jukebox musical? Well it is and there are other peculiar choices: Sandra (Hannah Frederickson) and Bobby duet on a couple of verses of the maudlin Tim Hardin tune “If I Were A Carpenter” (...And you were a lady /Would you marry me anyway, would you have my baby etc etc). Okay, so it was one of Darin’s minor hits but...

Poor – and excessive – song choice is highlighted in a jarring Vegas-style medley of songs from Darin’s live act, including “Multiplication” (Darin’s own), “Hello Young Lovers” (Rodgers and Hammerstein – The King and I) and the 1902 ditty (credited to Darin in the program!) “Won’t You Come Home Bill Bailey”. Then Frederickson as the by now bored and boozed Sandy launches into “Charade”, the melancholy Mancini/Mercer theme song from the Audrey Hepburn/Cary Grant movie of the same name. The second verse goes “Oh what a hit we made/ We came on next to closing/ Best on the bill, lovers until/ Love left the masquerade.” It encapsulates the predicament of the young couple and Frederickson’s delivery is soulful, but it feels  anachronistic within its context and this and other clumsy juxtapositions make one’s teeth ache. As does the obvious lack of top-grade musical theatre songwriters these days.

Nevertheless, David Campbell is simply fabulous. Relative newcomer Hannah Frederickson is charming and credible. Caroline O’Connor, in the roles of Bobby’s Italian-Bronx heart of gold momma and Sandra’s overbearing stage mama is as electric and – when permitted – as funny as she always is. Marney McQueen as Bobby’s elder sister Nina creates one of the few genuinely startling and touching scenes in the show when their family secret is revealed.

Bert La Bonte, as Nina’s husband and ordinary guy cab driver is a delight as is Martin Crewes as Bobby’s long-term manager and buddy Steve Blauner. In the strong company, Phoebe Panaretos shines briefly as Connie Francis, Xander Ellis (Dion), Tim Maddren (Buddy Holly) and Joshua Robson (Frankie Avalon) equally so in their 60s big-hit mix. 

The emphasis is on “brief”, however, and that’s a problem. The story is entirely focussed on Darin and more than that, Darin singing – to the exclusion of a more coherent narrative and the development of other characters. And there are way too many songs and way too many of them are sung by one man, at length and at full bore to get above the band.

If the producers want eight shows a week out of David Campbell they will have to consider a couple of things: cutting back the songs from full renditions (too much and too many anyway) to a couple of taste-tempting verses and, rejigging the book and characters to give others in the cast more of the load and limelight. It’s early days in the life of the new show and undoubtedly much to be done, but these are urgent – hard to think of anyone else being able to take on the title role. The ball of energy and determination that is Mr Campbell needs protection from himself.

Brian Thomson’s coloured lights and tiered Vegas nitery set works well and is pleasingly simple – throwing emphasis back on the performers at all times. (Paul Jackson’s lighting design is integral to its success.) Tim Chappel’s period costumes – street and show – are delicious and fun, especially the dreary neat shirts and slacks of the ’50s cool guys. And the choreography (Andrew Hallsworth) is a bit Fosse, a bit early-American Bandstand-Countdown and a bit not as impressive as his other recent work. 

If, as has just been announced, My Fair Lady is the best-selling show ever at the Sydney Opera House, there is little to stop Dream Lover grabbing a healthy slice of the musical theatre/ good night out audience too. It’s spirited entertainment and could be a whole lot better if it were to be worked on in the way Baz Luhrmann works on a show. Or if, perhaps, credited dramaturg Carolyn Burns was allowed to wield the blue pencil and scissors rather more rigorously than seems evident so far.

Dream Lover has more than enough good material available to tell Darin’s astonishing and all too human story in a rich and satisfying way. At the moment whatever cogency and flair is on view is down to director Simon Phillips. Its real magic is in the company and David Campbell.