Chemistry, charisma and an edgy spirit breathe new life into musical revival of teen classic

THEATRE
Heathers the Musical ★★★★
Arts Centre Melbourne, until May 9

“Dear diary, my teen-angst bullshit now has a body count,” observes Veronica Sawyer, the heroine of Heathers, famously played by Winona Ryder in the 1988 teen movie.

It’s the kind of coolly ironic remark that made the film a cultural touchstone for Gen X, though Heathers will survive for as long as teenagers do. Everything can feel like a matter of life or death in the crucible of adolescence, after all, and the darker the global outlook becomes, the more this blackly comic take on teen angst seems to vibe with it.

Can musical theatre do justice to the doom-laden subversiveness of Heathers? A decade ago, I didn’t think so. The show’s last Melbourne outing in 2016, directed by Trevor Ashley, appeared too mainstream – and too Broadway – to channel the story’s edgy spirit. This revival has changed my mind, thanks in no small part to the chemistry and charisma of the leads.

Emma Caporaso is brilliant as Veronica. A smart outsider who makes a calculated bid to become popular at high school, our narrator ingratiates herself with “the Heathers” (Calista Nelmes, Amelia Rojas, Abigail Sharp) – a toxic clique of cool girls who parade around Westerberg High in matching scrunchies, tartan skirts and over-the-knee socks, while mercilessly bullying those lower in the social pecking order.

She knows it’s a Faustian bargain, but what she doesn’t calculate is the arrival of JD (Connor Beaumont) – a Baudelaire-quoting bad boy with a traumatic backstory and a nihilistic streak.

Veronica’s new boyfriend takes revenge on school bullies by committing serial murder, tricks her into becoming an accomplice, and uses her talent for forgery to help disguise the deaths as teen suicides.

Caporaso can sing like a dream, but it’s the unusual conviction and attention to detail in the comic acting that wins the audience over in short order. We get treated to a dorkier and deeper portrayal of Veronica than Ryder’s portrayal. There’s a half-knowing quality, an authentic adolescent messiness to every step Veronica takes, from triumphant sexual awakening to a creeping horror at her own choices, that becomes the beating heart of the show.

Opposite her, Beaumont brings a dark charm to JD. His recent turn as Patrick Bateman in American Psycho the Musical might have honed his talent for sociopathic characters, although JD is driven by trauma rather than entitlement; until the romcom falls murderously apart, he’s a magnetic and vulnerable leading man.

The Heathers themselves are a self-appointed troika of bullying and bitchiness, choreographed to camp perfection. Nelmes is virulent as the venomous queen bee. After her character’s death, she provides sardonic commentary, while Rojas seizes her crown (in this case, a red scrunchie), and Sharp provides notes of genuine grief from under the chorus of defensive irony.

Teen spirit enlivens the supporting performances. Nic Van Lits and David Cuny are hilarious as homophobic jocks whose deaths are passed off as a gay suicide pact. Mel O’Brien shines as Veronica’s good-hearted but desperately unpopular friend, Martha.

The second half isn’t as strong as the first, but clever direction, dynamic performances, and attractive design make this production of Heathers much more than a nostalgia hit for Gen Xers. It breathes new life into a teen classic in a way that all musical theatre fans should enjoy.
Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead

THEATRE
The Irreducible ★★★★
Theatre Works Explosives Factory, until April 25

Created by queer performance artist Cohan, this wonderfully weird piece of physical theatre immerses audiences in an otherworldly setting. The stage is dominated by black scaffolding, festooned with tubes and suspended globes containing luminescent green ooze.

It’s as if you’ve stepped into an alien sex dungeon or birthing chamber or Frankenstein’s lab, and the unnerving stage picture is matched by a startling illusion to begin the show. It fooled me, and I’m quite difficult to trick.

The Irreducible leaps to wordless, tightly choreographed life when a nude figure in a gas mask appears, with a hook-like appendage – glistening, black, insectile – replacing one foot. That unstable mutation makes one leg longer than the other, and the figure shudders and cavorts and climbs the scaffolding, shocked into a hybrid dance of partial transformation.

Each sequence introduces a bodily change. Some are humanising (the mask and the appendage come off), some flirt heavily with the Other through insect-like processes – from the figure becoming enveloped by a translucent cocoon to a scene in which they pupate, and (amusingly) produce larvae, using full-body puppetry.

As the transgressive burlesque continues, we witness a struggle against the fixtures involved in their transformation, and sometimes a willing embrace of them. The ambiguity is preserved right up to an arresting climax – a coup de théâtre that sees nourishment, or perhaps drowning, in a bath of green goo.

Although the show looks body-horror adjacent, and it’s impossible to see it without being forcefully reminded of Gregor Samsa in Kafka’s Metamorphosis, the ultimate effect is an uncanniness steeped not in horror, but in wonder.

Whatever transhuman future awaits the queer body here, it feels more dream than nightmare. Stasis is a greater threat than change. The desire to be typical, symmetrical, forever the same in oneself, leads to a more awkward movement language than a surrender to the rhythms of constant change and fresh possibility.

Impressive scenic, lighting and sound design all add to the atmospheric world-creation of the performance. There are some stunning visual surprises, and the brooding electronic soundtrack by Fia Haugh and Di Drew hugs the show’s vision and choreography like a well-tailored costume.

That the vision’s kinky is part of its pleasure, though the real liberation to be found in The Irreducible is precisely what the title implies. Cohan has spawned a piece of performance art that’s defiantly surreal, mysterious, and resistant to easy interpretation, yet aesthetically complete.
Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead

MUSIC
Jimmy Barnes | Working Class Man 40th Anniversary Tour ★★★★★
Rod Laver Arena, April 10

Older, wiser, and surrounded by family members on stage, Jimmy Barnes doesn’t hurl himself into the audience like the wild old days fronting Cold Chisel.

However, images from years ago of a far younger and wiry rock ’n’ roller – smile plastered across his face – sprang to mind as the 69-year-old prowled the stage. His body may have thickened somewhat, like a maturing tree, but time has not sapped his energy.

Just two years after Chisel’s mighty Last Stand tour, Barnes released his chart-topping 1985 album, For the Working Class Man, and the final night of this 40th anniversary tour was a stunning reminder of why his solo career took off like a rocket. “I’ve cried, and I’ve rejoiced in this room,” he said about Melbourne’s packed Rod Laver Arena. “I can’t think of a better place to celebrate 1985.”

Images and clips from Barnesy’s extraordinary and colourful career splashed across the back of the stage as his band launched into album opener Die To Be With You Tonight.

There was plenty of bonhomie spilling off the stage, too, as Barnes’ son, Jackie Barnes, pounded the drums and son-in-law Benjamin Rodgers tore into an early guitar solo during Ride the Night Away.

Daylight was another reminder of Barnes’ songwriting skill, and how these hard-hitting, well-crafted songs have stood up over time. Promise Me You’ll Call and No Second Prize brought 1985 flooding back, as Danny Spencer cranked up his guitar.

Influenced early in his career by the swagger and ferocious live rock ’n’ roll of Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs, English group Free and the irrepressible Tina Turner, Barnes never backs down. He’s not leaping into the audience, but he’s with them every step of the way.

As the rollicking, twin-guitar attack filled the stadium, Barnesy upped the ante by ripping into the pure, unrestrained joy of Paradise before his anthemic Working Class Man had the huge crowd singing along.

On a night of celebration with fans and family, backing vocals featured daughter Eliza-Jane and wife Jane Barnes. Much to Jimmy’s delight, Jane also played bagpipes, and daughter Mahalia shared vocals on a powerful rendition of Too Much Ain’t Enough Love.

Earlier, an undercard of superb Australian talent featured Kate Ceberano, Barnes’ Cold Chisel bandmate, Ian Moss, and his band, and Icehouse. Moss returned for a starring guitar role on Merry-Go-Round, before Ceberano, Icehouse’s Iva Davies and Moss joined a memorable blast of the Easybeats’ Good Times, which was covered by Barnes and INXS in 1986.

Cold Chisel’s Khe Sanh and Goodbye (Astrid Goodbye) were a tie for biggest crowd sing-along of the two-hour show, but Barnes’ granddaughter, Ruby, sharing vocals on the iconic Flame Trees was a moment to cherish.
Reviewed by Martin Boulton

THEATRE
Spare a Thought for Jana Wendt ★★
La Mama Theatre, until April 26

A group of people sequestered in a house together under the guise of a weekend away is fertile ground for drama. As social niceties are stripped away, etiquette gives way to something more raw and intimate. This intensified dynamic has been adroitly captured in books, film and theatre – Charlotte Wood’s aptly titled novel, The Weekend, and Ash Flanders’ slice-of-life play, This Is Living, among them.

Nicola Watson’s play, Spare A Thought for Jana Wendt, is the latest addition to the canon. United by a bond that stretches back decades, three friends – June (Rebecca Bower), May (Tess Masters) and April (Alex Aldrich) – show up to a well-appointed Airbnb in the country, brought to life through Bianca Pardo’s set of polished marble surfaces and monochromatic interiors.

As is often the case with such depictions, the trio have diverged in values and vocation since once being tied by circumstance, and the weekend away is a bubbling cauldron of barely concealed resentments and thorny miscomprehensions. Add in some bad weather and their sneaking suspicion that they’re not alone in the house, and the stage is set.

The conversations that unfold are a Rolodex of Millennial concerns. Inflated housing prices? Tick. Climate change anxiety? Tick. Concerns about the youth? Tick. There isn’t much that’s surprising or particularly illuminating about Watson’s uneven script – well-trodden issues are dissected in well-worn ways.

The moral conscience of the play, teacher May, is too grating and sanctimonious to anchor the proceedings in any meaningful way. Under Anne Browning’s direction, Masters’ naturalistic performance as a tightly coiled spring waiting to unfurl is at odds with the caricaturist April and June – though it’s less clear what June is caricaturing.

Enunciated with the exaggerated drawl of the upper-middle-class, Aldrich’s April is an entitled cosmetic surgeon. Purposefully trite addresses that begin with catchphrases like “as a mother” fly out of April’s mouth to great effect – this is a character taken to its extreme, and Aldrich’s heightened performance of April’s contradictions lend her a believable complexity despite her overblown veneer.

Bower is similarly affected as June, but this one-dimensional character doesn’t benefit from the same treatment. A PhD graduate 12 years in the making, June is, in many ways, a bridge between April’s moneyed opulence and May’s eked-out existence. In what could’ve been commentary on hypocrisy and performativity, Bower’s overdone June is vacuous and inscrutable.

Peals of thunder and thudding footsteps are interchangeable to a discombobulating degree in Jack Burmeister’s sound design, while Tom Vulcan’s light design plays with the seed of unknowing at the heart of the play. When the play’s sleight of hand is finally revealed, however, the effect is strangely muted.

At its best, Spare A Thought for Jana Wendt is a snapshot of what happens when the porous borders that separate the outside world from our personal lives collapse, and moral quagmires force us to confront what we think we know about ourselves.

It’s unfortunate that much of it feels derivative and doesn’t tread any new ground as it hurtles towards its predictable end.
Reviewed by Sonia Nair

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