One of the most moving songs in SMASH HITS AND STEREOTYPES is actually about an imminent death. Considering this is a young cast, a freshly created work and the story of a 21st birthday it really made me think. Such an entertaining show, vibrant, shiny and new, energetic and driven, deserves a life.
Two characters arrive alone on stage with love on their mind. A group of friends have hired a beach house to celebrate a Spring birthday and Olivia and Bud are the early birds who will get the biggest bedroom. As the other friends arrive the good times are set to roll until tensions surface as one of the relationships comes under threat from an interloper. Alliances will be tested and each of the friends will change and grow over the next 2 hours.
SMASH HITS AND STEREOTYPES has a solid story and characters to fall in love with, and yet is disarmingly thoughtful and reflective. There is a Cinema vs Music battle that we have all had at a drunken student party which has been moulded into a neat song that puts the intelligence of this work on show. Written by Coco Grainger and Ludwig Van Distortion (yes really!) it is professional and polished. With some really well written comic lines! I liked “bedsprings to test”. Such an archaic reference but what really made me laugh was “Hi Sis, I was just about to toke up!”
Their publicity blurb suggests that the show is a kind of anti-musical “Burn down Broadway” and that is apparent in the music. The musician character Ray sings of “discordant, unusual instruments” and there is mention of “dissonant pauses” and those are there for sure. Add to that an audacious slow and sad opening number after interval and the score is well and truly lifted away from the formulaic.
One orchestration I really warmed to was ‘Put Him in the Fire’ (I hope that’s the right piece … the sad telephone call is the scene I mean). Here, a single note piano merges into the recorded phone voice as the backing reinforces the emotional arc and intent of the song. Really well done and very touching musically. Another terrific song which would make a great millennial anthem is ‘The Best Ten Years’ and that was one of my favourites.
Top of my hit parade? ‘Rest of the Night’. This was such an uplifting sequence. A cast enjoying themselves and working so smoothly as an ensemble reinforced with an echoey, organ-resonant, ghost-choir backing orchestration with cymbals swelling. Joyous and thrilling.
I also loved the electric guitar intro to ‘I Know Why the Lover Sings’. This song gives me an entrée into some of the excellent acting and singing in the show. Bec Power as Flora, the birthday girl, is really good in this sequence as she develops her character and sets up the misery that will drive second act. Her acting is excellent in this duet and we are completely drawn to empathise with her, despite getting her unfaithful boyfriend’s side of the story at the same time. Victor, the boyfriend in question, played by Denver Naude, is an arse. He’s a prat when he enters and remains so for the duration… irredeemable in my eyes.
There is good character work going on all through the show. They might be stereotypes but the cast work hard to project them above the tropes. Ray (Samuel Morrell) is the angst ridden, introverted, obsessed poet-musician who gives us a man who prefers to speak through his guitar and lyrics.
Vanessa Tomasello gives us a cute and sweet Olivia, who does a great job in the previously mentioned telephone scene.
Tilly Murphy is also terrific as Gen. I loved her top notes in the trio just after interval. And the minor characters are all present and accounted for too. ‘The Fire in You’ uses the great voices of Alicia Hartwick (the Maid) and Tom Pegler (the Caretaker) in a slow song that has such genuine longing on display.
There are two voices that that really shone for me. Myles Burgin (Bud) and Georgia Munster (Dawn). Individually excellent, there is a tiny section in the final sequence when the blend between of their voices gave me goosebumps. I could have done with more of that.
That final section has a radio or concert feel to it which I am sure is by design from Coco Grainger who also directed the piece. Grainger has done an excellent job of getting 10 characters around a very small set with purpose and expediency.
There are a few dead spots that need extra business but I appreciated the skill it took to, for example, put a well-choreographed pom-pom routine on that postage stamp stage … quite fun. She has a delicate touch when needed and that lovely scene where the Caretaker reads Ray’s notebook lyrics is evocative and as upsetting as his physical rifling through the friends’ baggage.
SMASH HITS AND STEREOTYPES is an enjoyable and entertaining show as it stands but there are conversations to be had. Discussions around length, the use of the pervert character, some those dead spots, and a few other conceptual missteps. But given all the talent and hard work on display here, I expect that this show will grow and blossom.
But they can’t do it alone.
They can’t do it with just family and friends. Independent theatre, independent musical theatre in particular, needs audiences and this production really needs a leg up. For example, I would love to hear it with a live band even though the recorded playback did work well.
This is a rare opportunity to see an emerging work which, I sincerely think, has the potential to become an important and honoured work. It really is that good. Go and see it now, give them your entry fee, give them your support and make sure SMASH HITS AND STEREOTYPES has a life.
The show continues at the Actors Pulse until 7 October and you can see the cast on display and hear one of their songs at https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=e6WLV4fjAoU