Reviewed by Ewart Shaw, Sunday 4th October 2015
Adelaide is on the first leg of a series of musicals based on successful movies, Big from Northern Lights, Ghost at the Festival Theatre early next year, and starting off with
Dirty Dancing, a stage version of the film from 1987. Two of the films starred the late
Patrick Swayze, whose ghost or guardian spirit hovers over this production.
The opening night audience at the Festival Theatre consisted predominantly of women of a certain age who fell for Swayze and have come back hoping to be reminded and rewarded.
Let me say, I was absolutely thrilled by the sheer professionalism, imagination, technical skill, attention to detail, colour and movement. I'm not talking about the dancing, acting singing or playing of the energetic cast. Not since the State Opera of South Australia's production of Moby Dick has the technical setup of a production on that stage been so overwhelming in its complexity and impact.
Set units trucked on and removed discreetly, screens flown in fluently, and back projections delivered as smoothly as possible, I suspect with lots of computer assistance, giving the production an almost cinematic flow. But I didn't resent the cast getting in the way.
Timed neatly, and probably fortuitously, for the American Labour Day Holiday, and ours, the story, for the few of you new to the event, tells of the developing romance between Baby, daughter of a doctor, and Johnny, a plasterer and painter, who works as a dancer. They meet at the holiday camp where he is employed to give dance exhibitions and dance lessons to the bored housewives, while their husbands play poker. There is a strong intimation that those lessons are often one on one.
Baby is a socially active young woman with a commitment to civil rights. It's 1963, Martin Luther King is referenced and, at one point, the score includes a rather tender performance of 'This land is your land', by
Woody Guthrie, blended with the anthemic 'we shall overcome'. The rest of the score, presented by a small and versatile musical ensemble, is a patchwork of the music of the era.
The audience were, let's face it, out for a good time. As the lights went done at the start, a small and vociferous bunch of women towards the back and the prompt side of the stall, started cheering and whooping. The laughed, they cheered, they swooned they sighed, and at the first act curtain as the bed loaded with Johnny and Baby on the way to giving her all, they roared with org*smic delight. When finally he comes back, through the audience and up onto the stage to deliver that line, they screamed. All that repressed, almost repressed energy, finally erupted. That line by the way is "Nobody puts Baby in a corner".
They also oohed and aahed when, in the climax to the very active choreography, Johnny lifts Baby above his head and turns slowly round. I don't want to a spoilsport, but the lead dancers of the Australian Ballet can carry a ballerina in the palm of their hand, above their head, and walk towards the front of the stage. I've seen them do it, and in the Festival Theatre. That's not to decry the skilful dancing and the musical strength of the show.
It's the story of Johnny and Baby, her real name is of course Frances, and
Kurt Phelan and
Kirby Burgess are as good as you could get. He's a fine dancer, and can act. She's in an astonishing wig, big enough to conceal her sound system, and conveys the shyness and growing maturity that the role demands. There's good support from Adam Murphy and Penny Martin as her parents, and hard working company of dancers and musicians. Eric Rasmussen stands out as vocalist Tito Suarez.
There's a plethora of songs, most only heard fragmented but a really funny, and probably now not quite so acceptable performance of Lisa's Hula by Tegan Wouters as Lisa, Baby's sister and 'In the still of the night' given by James D Smith as Billy Kostecki. They don't write songs like that anymore.
If you've got great memories of the movie, you won't be disappointed by this slick and fast moving evening, and if you've not seen the film, and there must be a few men who haven't been dragged to it by their partners, you're in for a treat. It's lot more than a soppy boy meets girl, boys loses girl, boy dances back into life of girl, chick flick with live action. I won't mention the famous song, but believe me it's appropriate.
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