Photo courtesy Janelle McMenamin
I will admit I enjoyed this when I saw the original run in sydney - part of this was enjoying all the bells and whistles of a big flashy professional musical production with no budget spared (and as someone who sees a lot of their musicals at the Hayes or in amateur production, it's nice to see conspicuous budget once in a while). Almost two years later, without the budget and the flash, how does Free Rain's production compare?
The main reason for seeing this show is still the Max Martin songbook, and it's given some good rich performances from the cast - Chloe Stevenson as the titular Juliet, in particular is required to sing iconic songs from Britney Spears, Ariana Grande, Kelly Clarkson and Katie Perry, and she delivers major pipes. Musical Director Callum Tolhurst-Close and sound designer Telia Jansen get some great rich pop sounds coming out of the 7-piece pit which, if it doesn't sound Just Like The Single, it's interesting enough to let the tunes run rich in our heads. Choreographer/Directors/Set Designer.s Charlotte Morphett and James Tolhurst-Close run a flowing production that keeps things spinning for most of the run (though their choice to do pre-show after the house closes rather than .. you know, Pre the Show, is ... certainly A Choice). Fiona Leach's costumes mix Elizabethan and street wear in funky ways although there is a little too many examples of corsets worn low enough to cover the crotch. Jacob Acquilina's lighting sets mood and flashes in spectacular style.
Seeing David West Read's script without the flash, it does become a little more apparent how low-stakes the female-empowerment subtext here really is - it's about as deep as Martin's ballads and doesn't really give any of the women anything more socially interesting to do than to date or not date particular blokes - it's feminasm as written by (probably) gay men. Yes, the script does squeeze the songs in successfully, but it doesn't really use them in interesting ways to deepen or examine the characters, rather it enjoys their original pop fizz and bounce. There's also, in this production, an over-reliance on American accents (yes, most of the songs were originally performed by Americans, but few of the songs are so dependent on accent to get the rhymes to work and we're looking at characters who are variously English, Italian and French anyway so why not use just a neutral one, unless performers are so wedded to doing music theatre in American accents that they can't drop them?)
Elsewhere in the cast, there's some nice work from the frisky older duo of Katie Lis as Angeliaque and David Satolin as the uberfrench Lance (the one who gets to escape the americanisms), Tate Sissian displays adorable vulnerability as the befuddled Francois, and Mackinley Brown's self-adoring posturing as Romeo is quite fun too.
Look, this is delightful turn-your-brain-off fun for the most part. But my brain kept on switching itself on during the show which meant I didn't quite fall completely in love with this. But if you have a taste for cheesy pop, flashy choreography and a thin serving of plot holding it all together and your brain does have a functioning off switch, this may be for you.
