The Lovers

The Lovers

Book, Music and Lyrics by Laura Murphy

Director Nick Skubij

Choreographer Yvette Lee

Designer Isabel Hudson

Photo credit Joel Devereux

Theatre Royal Sydney

Reviewed by Ron Lee, CSP

The Lovers was unfamiliar. It’s a new Australian musical, that’s why. They’re always met with anticipation, hoping that it will be world class. Before this one, the last two “next big Australian musicals” that I saw were well below that standard and, combined, lasted only a handful performances.

I didn’t know the synopsis, but upon seeing that the characters were Oberon, Puck, Hermia, Lysander, Helena and Demetrius, William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream had to be a part of it. 

One of the intertwined sub-plots in Dream involves the relationships between the four young lovers. This is in sharp focus in this production.

In a nod to the The Bard of Avon, a bust of Shakespeare’s head appears early on the flown-in heart, and the lovers first enter wearing black and white costumes with Elizabethan ruff collars.

Quite a bit of Shakespeare’s script from Dream is used in a seamless blend of old and modern dialogue, and the musical styles in the thirty-three songs span from 1950s doo wop to current day. In one of the songs, the lyricist was looking for words that rhyme with Puck. She came up with “schmuck”, “luck” and another word that I don’t entirely recall.

For Shakespeare aficionados, don’t expect to see Titania, The Mechanicals or the fairies. The Popular Mechanicals is another spin-off from Shakespeare’s most performed comedy.

If you haven’t seen a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and you’re curious, there are several versions online, including the traditional 1968 film that stars Diana Rigg, Helen Mirren and Judi Dench. More watchable might be contemporary offerings that are faithful to the original script.

It wasn’t until after the intermission that I realised that this production was clearly conceived and created by a woman. The two, two-dimensional male characters are manipulated by the female characters which are far more evolved and there are references to women claiming their power. Oberon, the King of the Fairies, and his mischievous sprite, Puck, are usually played my men, but in this one, Stellar Perry is Oberon and Jayme-Lee Hanekom plays Puck, and they serve as narrators who advance the plot. There’s the master-servant relationship between the two, and the vibe is also that they are BFFs and could possibly be more.

The pace of the action is also driven by Isabel Hudson’s set which includes three concentric revolves. The designs on the back-lit cyclorama reminded me of psychedelic projections in the 1960s and scenes from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The five-piece band, which is positioned upstage, sounds bigger than it is. The use of tens of thousands of tiny, shiny hearts adds to the atmosphere.

In Dream, Puck’s epilogue wraps up and closes the play. To be hyper-critical, some of the bits after this epilogue, which breaks the fourth wall, have a stocking-filler quality. I would have been happy to have seen the epilogue followed by the big musical number to close it out.

As well as Hanekom and Perry, the other members of the young cast are Loren Hunter (Hermia), Mat Verevis (Lysander), Natalie Abbott (Helena) and Jason Arrow (Demetrius). All six are talented performers who step up and show that the future of Australian musical theatre is in good hands.

So, is The Lovers the new, big Australian musical? Kudos to all of the producers who took the risk on this production. Yes, it deserves to be successful. The blend of Shakespeare’s well-loved work with modern language, the high energy, the many laughs and appealing music and songs put it up there. In fact, I enjoyed it far more than some of the other recent, big budget musical offerings.

My companion on the night isn’t a Shakespeare fan by any measure, but she absolutely raved about the show. Being familiar with A Midsummer Night’s Dream is just a bonus. The Lovers at Sydney’s Theatre Royal is definitely worth catching.