Caroline O’Connor and Cast; photo Jeff Busby
The Brisbane premiere of Anything Goes arrived the night after the 2015 Helpmann Awards, which saw the revival lose to those revolutionary ruffians of Les Misérables, but still nab three awards, including a nod for the show’s star, Caroline O’Connor. You can’t help but wonder what composer Cole Porter would’ve made of O’Connor, the same woman who portrayed Ethel Merman in the biopic of Porter’s life, as she delivers his most memorable songs in this, his most iconic musical.
Anything Goes harks back to a time when cruising was glamorous, when a person could manage to hold a cocktail in their manicured hand instead of just wearing a giant one on a lanyard ’round their neck, a time when a gangster would be considered the most dangerous person on board a passenger vessel. The madcap tale tells the story of Billy Crocker (Alex Rathgeber), a stowaway on a ship bound for London, fleeing his job in New York to chase after Hope Harcourt (Claire Lyon), an heiress engaged to floppy-haired, effete Englishman, Lord Evelyn Oakleigh (Todd McKenney). Once aboard, Crocker hatches a plan with nightclub singer Reno Sweeney (Caroline O’Connor) and notorious criminal Moonface Martin (Wayne Scott Kermond) to lead Lord Oakleigh astray, while winning over his true love and cautiously avoiding The Captain (Gerry Connelly).
O’Connor is world-class, her voice as faultless as ever and the real surprise here is just what a wonderful physical comedian she is – especially in ‘Friendship’, a duet with Kermond. We’re reminded too that McKenney, that villainous TV dance judge, actually knows what the hell he’s talking about. In ‘The Gypsy In Me’ he gets to show rather than tell – graceful and precise in his movement. Rathgeber and Lyons share genuine chemistry and charisma and special mention must go to Connelly as The Captain. O’Connor recently told ABC Radio that no Connelly performance is quite the same and the audience clearly relishes his every utterance.
Having produced tours of South Pacific and The King And I in recent years, Opera Australia must now be running out of musicals with unsettling racist undertones. While Anything Goes mostly avoids the ‘noblemen vs savages’ bigotry of Rodgers and Hammerstein, its only Chinese characters (formerly ‘Ching and Ling’, now ‘Luke and John’) are still a drunk and a gambler and the finale sees three main characters don traditional dress and use accents belonging to the days of crank call commercial radio. Given the setting, it may not be realistic for Anything Goes to adopt the same tolerances of today, but to make a case for sticking with the infamous ‘Plum Blossom’ storyline one would need to argue its merit – who or what are we laughing at? And can the story progress without trotting out the same ethnic caricatures many Asian performers have been railing against for decades?
The truth is it’s largely a de-lovely musical in a de-sperate need of a rewrite. And given the most contemporary rewrite was done before the Berlin Wall fell, isn’t it overdue? Racial concerns aside, the show’s uneven, the second act drags and the dialogue can’t touch what Porter does lyrically. It’s a shame too, because there’s a wealth of talent behind this production, led by accomplished director Dean Bryant. Andrew Hallsworth’s Helpmann-winning choreography in the title number is enough to cause light-headedness – with such unadulterated joy you immediately want to see it again that very night and perhaps every night for the rest of your otherwise miserable life. Gladly we’re spared a “big reveal” of the set – the familiar ship deck bookended by a grand staircase – which, though tired, is perfectly serviceable and, along with sumptuous costumes by Dale Ferguson, gives a loving impression of a PG Wodehouse cover.
You could floss your teeth with the plot of Anything Goes, its book undeserving of such infectious songs, but this polished production is at least self-aware fun, as cool and free flowing as winds across the bow and never less than supremely entertaining.
Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5
Anything Goes
Music and Lyrics by Cole Porter
Original Book by P.G. Wodehouse, Guy Bolton, Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse
Revised Book by Timothy Crouse and John Weidman
Directed by Dean Bryant
Musical Director: Peter Casey
Cast includes: Caroline O’Connor, Todd McKenney, Wayne Scott Kermond, Alex Rathgeber, Claire Lyon, Carmen Duncan, Debora Krizak, Gerry Connolly, Bartholomew John, Aljin Abella, Nicholas Kong
Lyric Theatre, Queensland Performing Arts Centre
July 25 – August 16, 2015
