& Juliet, Michael Cassel Group in association with MTM/LeyLine, Sydney Lyric, to 12 July

 

This is a big budget, flashy, tacky jukebox musical using the work of Max Martin (co-writer of about 50% of the songs you've listened to on FM radio from 1996 until now) to tell a continuation of the story of Juliet if she hadn't committed suicide at the end of Shakespeare's play, with a metatheatrical twist as Shakespeare's wife Anne Hathaway rewrites the plot and Shakespeare makes his own contributions along the way to try to bring the plot back to how he envisaged it. The plot is largely an excuse to introduce the next pop banger into the show, the show uses all the bells and whistles of staging including two lifts, a revolve, pyrotechnics, confetti, lighting to blind the audience and sound to dominate them. And I love it.

I've heard the arguments against jukebox musicals before, their re-use of existing tunes lacks creativity and diminishes the art form. This kind of re-use has been around since at least 1728's "Beggars Opera", and includes such forms as Handel's pasticcio operas Oreste, Alessandro Severo, and Giove in Arg, which all rearranged existing tunes into new forms for the delight and entertainment of the audience. And that's exactly what this show does - delights and entertains, doing the familiar in remixed form to bring delights to a mass audience. 

Having suitably snob-protected this review, let's move onto the cast. The risk of reviewing a show this far into its season (it's been running since March) is that, particularly early in winter, some of the cast may be out, and in this case, I had 4 of the eight leads replaced by covers. However, I can report Georgia Kennedy, filling in for Lorinda May Merrypor as Juliet sang like a diva, and was a suitable mix of confused young girl and strong woman as the plot turns required. Similarly, Sarah Murr filling in for Amy Lehpamer as Anne gave the role playfulness and integrity, Jade Delmiguez filling in for Casey Donavan as servant Angelique had killer pipes and a fine sense of comedy, and Sean Sinclair filling in for Hayden Tee as Lance was suitably ridiculous and autoractic as a demanding dad. I will be honest and say that I wasn't exactly pleased to see that Rob Mills was still in the show (he's one of the reasons I find musical theatre casting in Australia sadly limited as I'm not entirely convinced he's particularly talented and he still retains my prejudice against him being a cocky little shit on "Australian Idol" two decades ago), but furtunately he's found a role that can accommodate his cocky-early-40s-personality these days and he does give it his all. Blake Appelqvist as Romeo is suitably ridiculous as the cocky serial-lover, self-centered and yet vulnerable in all the right spots. Jesse Dutlow as sweet-natured May is suitably loveable and rootable for (even when the character's name is a setup for an obvious song drop in act two), and Yashith Fernando gives the dopey Francois a gentle vulnerability which makes the audience buy into the character's goofiest plot developments.  

It's flashy, it's jukebox down to its very soul (including having a jukebox onstage during the preshow and intermission) and it's in no way to be confused with deep important drama, but it's a great night out with a score that is all-bangers-all the time, and I must admit I found it highly irresistable.