Review: 9 TO 5: THE MUSICAL at Adelaide Festival Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre

Reviewed by Barry Lenny, Thursday 13th October 2022.

Dolly Parton's 2009 musical, 9 to 5, with a book by the 1980 film's co-screenwriter, Patricia Resnick, has finally found its way to Adelaide, opening last night to a full house at the Festival Theatre. The audience, I observed, was full of Adelaide folk who perform in theatre, musical theatre, music, and cabaret. I found myself sitting next to Libby O'Donovan, winner of the 2022 Adelaide Cabaret Festival Icon Award. The cast of this show attracts people from the entire performing arts scene, as well as other theatregoers.

It would not have been difficult to promote this production, as any one of the principals: Marina Prior, Caroline O'Connor, Casey Donovan, Erin Clare, and Eddie Perfect, would have been enough to guarantee good audiences. All five in the one production assures a solid gold hit, and it is.

The story can be summed up very simply. Franklin Hart Jnr. is the controlling, sexist, misogynistic boss of the office, and three of the employees, Doralee, Violet, and Judy, decide that it is time for him to get his comeuppance. Having kidnapped him and imprisoned him in his own home, they take over the running of the company, forging his name on all of the documents, introducing myriad new, enlightened policies, and improving life for the workers.

Casey Donovan plays Judy Bernly, whose husband has left her for a younger woman, and who has never had a job in her life, going straight from school to marriage and, now, to divorce. She has no office skills, life skills, or work experience of any sort, but the supervisor, Violet Newstead, played by Marina Prior, takes pity on her and offers to teach her.

Donovan begins as a shy, mousey housewife, with a sweet little voice and a demure demeanour. Those familiar with her work might find this hard to believe. When Judy Bernly finally comes out of her shell, Donovan's powerful voice stopped the show with thunderous applause. She wasn't the only one to do that. Laughter and applause rang out all night.

Prior's Violet is the outwardly efficient supervisor who effectively runs the company, for which Hart takes all of the credit. Her cool efficiency hides a soft heart, but Judy is asked not to tell the others. Prior gradually has her character allow the veneer to fall away, and the warmth emerges as she bonds with the other two. Prior gives another of her strong performances.

Erin Clare plays Doralee Rhodes, a southern country girl who is not as dim as the lecherous boss thinks she is. Clare brings that Southern drawl to her dialogue, and the country music twang to her singing, creating her own version of the character, without actually trying to be a carbon copy of Dolly Parton,

Caroline O'Connor is the office spy, Roz Keith, who happens to be desperately in love with the boss, Franklin Hart Jnr., played by Eddie Perfect, and who keeps him informed of all that is going on in the office.

O'Connor is, as always, superb, presenting Roz as trying hard to impress Hart, who hardly notices that she is even a woman, treating her more like a servant than a secretary. When she finds herself alone in his office, she expresses her love and desire for him, and O'Connor brings the house down with a combination of hilarious choreography and visual humour, coupled with superb vocals. The best role to play is not always the biggest.

Perfect is hilariously sleazy as Hart, regaling his protégée with sexist jokes in appallingly bad taste, calling the female staff his "girls", and treating them like simpletons. He was wonderfully horrible as Hart and, of course, sang up a storm. He garnered plenty of laughs with his antics, and was great fun in Hart's adversity and humiliation.

There is a fine ensemble, each of whom has their moment playing minor characters, all of them giving fine performances, including Joshua Mulheren, suitably unpleasant as Judy's unfaithful ex-husband, Dick, Zoe Coppinger, comically naïve as Missy Hart, and Sarah Krndija, hilarious as Margaret, the office alcoholic. The chorus numbers and choreography are all energetic and very well-executed.

The small orchestra, under Musical Director, James Simpson, does an excellent job, which isn't surprising when I look at the names of the musicians. The sound balance throughout is impeccable, but it always is around the Festival Centre, the lighting being just as precise.

The set was impressive, beginning with the huge 9 to 2 sign taking up a large portion of the stage, surrounded by four arches of light boxes, one behind the other going upstage. The O in 'to' is initially a large clockface, which quickly disappears to be replaced by a recording of Dolly Parton, who welcomes everybody and leads the singing of the titular number. The sign then vanishes up into the fly gallery until needed again. The light boxes change colours as scenes change, and all of the furniture and scenery is added and removed by the cast.

This is a fun, lively, funny production that really needs no introduction. Bookings are bound to be heavy, so don't waste any time buying your tickets.

Photography, David Hooley.