Love. It hurts. It is a battlefield. It is a many splendored thing. It changes everything. It is a losing game. It is in the air. Love is the lyrics for almost every song every written. So there must be something to this crazy little thing called love.
Henrietta Pleasureberry (Michelle Landsdown, hot off her role as a fabulous Ursula in The Little Mermaid) has been so damaged by love, she creates a town to protect the inhabitants from the pain of love. Here, it is an unknown concept but in order to fulfil the need for intimacy, inhabitants are encouraged to watch each other closely. More voyeurism than stalking. No-one touches, everyone looks. The plan fails and two people – Ava (Emma Taviani) and Jay (Levi Burrows) fall in love. Up the stakes with the entry of a Stranger (Peter Meredith) who is thoroughly embittered by love and the stage is set for things to go very much awry. As Kaleigh Wilkie-Smith (Director) says “they have no model for a healthy relationship” and so have to figure it out alone. Cracks appear in Ava and Jay’s relationship and their new home. Can the cracks be fixed?
By interval , one is thinking if Jay and Ava need a role for a healthy relationship, they are pretty much doomed. The outside world certainly does not offer one. (The real world rarely offers one!). After all, if it were easy we wouldn’t keep chasing it in so many ways; being obsessed with it, doing anything for it. The sentiments of musical number “Love is a four letter word” resonate strongly! The Stranger is sinister, but not sinister enough. The villain needs to be a substantial threat – this one is something of a toothless tiger. A fault in writing, not performance. Chances for comedy are seized on by the cast but they don’t have the material play them out fully.
Stalker : The Musical is the latest offering of RPG Productions – Keith Muir, David Russell and Alex Giles. Highly dedicated young talent who are not afraid to play with metaphor rather than going straight for the narrative to explore theme. Rather
than churning out old stuff, they try to offer something fresh and for this they need to be encouraged and supported. However, most of the musical numbers are just not memorable – very one note – and it lacks what every musical must have to lock it down with an audience – the catchy, comedy number. It is almost a string of ballads. The litmus test is do you leave humming a particular tune? No, I didn’t.
The show itself is in good hands. It looks good. Director Wilkie-Smith has designed a clever, effective use of space and colour and costumes are character indicative. Lighting (James Wallis) is complementary although cues were a little off on opening night and cast struggled to find the spot at times. The cast are all committed and energetic. It sounds good – for the most part. Some sound desk hitches on opening night will no doubt be sorted out.
This musical has promise but in its present form is likely to quickly lapse into the forgotten file. There is charm. But there is also a generic sense. New work needs to be a little risky – mash up musical genres. All sorts of exciting things are happening in music. Utilise some. A pleasant evening but unfortunately not a memorable one.
Grant Leslie Photography
Kate Stratford – On The Town
Stalker: The Musical
Keith Muir, David Russell, Alex Giles
19 Sept-6 Oct, 2018
Wednesday – Saturday 8pm
Saturday matinees 2pm
Venue: Depot Theatre
Theatre Company: RPG Productions
Duration: 150 minutes including interval
Australian premiere of Australian musical
Stalker: The Musical is a dark, satirical musical, set in a dystopian world where love is taboo, and men and women are free to leer and lust to their heart’s content. Jay Cloudstreet finds himself drawn to one particular girl, Ava Derwent.
We follow this awkward couple through a story of self-discovery as they explore what love is and the pleasure and heart-break it brings. The story is complicated further by a mysterious stranger who throws this world, and its rules, into chaos.
The show has been presented at the New York fringe festival, the Chicago Music Theatre festival and a workshop production at the Hayes Theatre.
