Dusty Springfield was British-born and, in part, American-made but Dusty The Musical is entirely an Australian creation. It was developed under director Stuart Maunder in 2004 and is revived this year by The Production Company under Jason Langley, one of the original team.
Langley leads an excellent creative team that showcases, once again, the mature ability of The Production Company to harness talent without gilding the lily with special effects.
Amy Lehpamer portrays Dusty with great verisimilitude, imitating the voice and mannerisms of the singer convincingly. She is supported by a good cast with a standout voice from Anne Wood, who plays Dusty’s mother Kay O’Brien and whose single solo was a highlight.
As a production, Dusty ticks all the boxes. The voices are fine and clear, the choreography crisp, the staging effective and the costumes evocative of their era.
There’s a great deal of nostalgic pleasure to be had in the clever way the dance numbers and costumes pick up the changing eras from 60s to 70s to 80s, from pop to soul, from Ealing to Memphis to the Royal Albert Hall. For anyone who loves Dusty or was immersed in the pop music culture of the period, it’s worth going just to relive the style and flavour of the era.
A particularly fun moment is the fabulous scene in which a team of television dancers in white jeans and skivvies is taught to swing their hips by three sexy soul sisters, led by Elenoa Rokobaro, who plays Dusty’s lover Reno.
Whether Dusty as a musical merits revival is a moot point. While the singer’s biography is not particularly well-known the story is as old as rags to riches, an ugly duckling who grows up to be a star but continues to battle the demons of doubt, and later, drink, and only in retrospect is fully appreciated.
The narrative structure of the musical handles this story through the recurring presence of the young Dusty, a schoolgirl whose real name is Mary O’Brien. Baylie Carson provides a nice foil to Lehpamer as the carrot-topped, tubby wannabe who is always compared unfavourably with her brother Tom (The Tom Springfield who grew up to be songwriter for The Seekers).
It’s an effective structure which moves the narrative along nicely and provides a neat setting from a good range of songs, Dusty classics including ‘I Only Want to Be With You’ and ‘Son of a Preacher Man’ but also well-chosen period selections. It’s a musical with plenty of music, lots of good dancing and not too much talking.
But at the end of the day there is no dramatic tension to be had. The evening chugged along, always satisfactory but never surprising. Dusty grows up, sings, shines, drinks, gets sober and ultimately dies without really moving us.
It is a polished, professional and predictable show, enjoyable at the time but hardly worth remembering in the morning.
3 stars out of ​5
Dusty The Musical
The Production Company
Arts Centre Melbourne
12 November to 4 December 2016
