ANYTHING GOES
ANYTHING GOES, Gordon Frost Organisation and Opera Australia at the Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera House, 8 September-31 October 2015. Photography: above - Caroline O’Connor and friends; right: Debora Krizak, Wayne Scott Kermond and Gerry Connolly.
The “SS American” is one of the creakier, leakier old tubs in the musical theatre canon and at 80-odd years old, is definitely barnacle encrusted. Nevertheless, its current crew and passengers are the creme de la creme of Australian musical theatre. Between them they stoke up an irresistible head of steam and roar right over the lurking shoals of a few not-so-great-songs and a book that needs more than a life jacket to save it.
Okay, enough already with the maritime schtick. Anything Goes is the latest of the now seemingly annual musical theatre collaborations between producer John Frost and Opera Australia and while one might (should) wonder at the choice of this show, there’s nothing whatsoever wrong with the casting of it.
So who’s on board? In the lead and powering the night like a one-woman Klieg lamp is the remarkable Caroline O’Connor as nightclub chanteuse Reno Sweeney; the temperature and energy tangibly rise by several degrees the moment she shimmies on stage. Reno is enamoured of hapless Wall Street wannabe Billy Crocker (honey-voiced Alex Rathgeber) but he is in love with Hope Harcourt (Claire Lyon – absolutely 30s starlet) a debutante who will be marrying Lord Evelyn Oakleigh (Todd McKenney) mid-voyage.
Also boarding the ship are bumbling gangster Moonface Martin (Wayne Scott Kermond), his accomplice, the ditzy doxie Erma (Debora Krizak); Hope’s mother and sharp-eyed chaperone Mrs Harcourt (Carmen Duncan), tycoon, Yale man and Billy Crocker’s employer Elisha Whitney (Bartholomew John), and of course, the ship’s Captain (Gerry Connolly).
Backing the principals is a 20-strong company of fine dancer-actors led by Josh Gates as a properly boyish junior purser. They’re all evidence – if any were needed – of the strength and depth of talent available to big shows in Australia these days. They all deserve a better show however, and although there are wonderful songs from Cole Porter – such as the uproarious title number as well as the true classics De-Lovely, You’re The Top, Easy To Love and I Get a Kick Out of You – it's when you see the book credits start with “PG Wodehouse and Guy Bolton and Howard Lindsay and Russell Crouse” … and then “Timothy Crouse and John Weidman” that it becomes clear why it’s such a daft dog’s breakfast.
Nevertheless, laughter breaks out at regular intervals around the auditorium as the cast manages to make the most of (deliberately) tooth-achingly awful jokes, as well as consistently brilliant comedy business – from Debora Krizak in particular.
The other stand-outs are Gerry Connolly in his vital cameo as the Captain, a role around which much business revolves and depends. The deceptive ease and charm he brings to the part should make the producers embarrassed that they ever allowed Alan Jones to browbeat them into agreeing to let him do it. And thank [insert higher power of your choice here] he eventually pulled out. An amateur in the role could well have sunk the old tub mid-Atlantic.
Todd McKenney has a wonderful time with his hair: a gloriously foppish part-Brideshead, part New Romantic confection that’s virtually a character all on its own. He’s also the epitome of a well meaning but excruciatingly silly upper class twit and, after his heart-wrenching turn as Albin in The Production Company’s La Cage aux Folles, you realise he’s a fine actor as well as a consummate song and dance man. (A tango with Caroline O’Connor was the electrifying dance highlight of the night.)
Speaking of the Production Company, on the down(ish) side is the set – three decks of the liner with the excellent 17-piece band under Peter Casey high above the action. It smacks of the deliberate economy of Jeanne Pratt’s Melbourne outfit where the shoestring is employed to stage the kinds of shows that would otherwise never see the light of day. For GFO and OA to mount such a tacky looking show is really not on.
That notwithstanding, the fabulous cast and musicians – assisted by sound designer Michael Waters, choreographer Andrew Hallsworth and director Dean Bryant – have made more than the most out of what they’ve been given and in the end, it’s quite a lot. So, this company is – as Caroline O’Connor show-stoppingly sings – the tops! They’re the Coliseum. They’re the top, they’re the Louvre museum … and so on. Enjoy.
