Sweet Charity @ The Playhouse

Verity Hunt-Ballard brilliant as Sweet Charity
Verity Hunt-Ballard brilliant as Sweet Charity

Ask me about live theatre and I will happily talk your ear off. However, after seeing SWEET CHARITY tonight, Mr Dictionary seems to have deserted me. There are no useful words to describe how much I enjoyed this show. I think I will stick to the clichés and say … This show is smashing! With smashing performances that are smashing records and smashing expectations.

SWEET CHARITY began life in the mid-sixties when Bob Fosse conceived of resetting Frederico Fellini’s film, Night of Cabiria, in a Times Square Dance Hall. The original 1966 production took Broadway by storm garnering 9 Tony nominations. The film with Shirley MacLaine , also directed by Fosse, brought the show to a wider audience. Seemingly always in revival somewhere, SWEET CHARITY has an international life and is a favourite for small companies despite the setting and some of the subject matter.

This production was staged at the Hayes Theatre last year and it achieved major critical recognition including eight Helpmann nominations, winning three. Audiences adored it. Of my party of nine, seven of us had seen it before and will probably see it again. This is the little show that dreamed it could have a better life. Just like Charity Hope Valentine of the title, who has just been dumped in the lake by her latest disastrous, thieving boyfriend.

The girls at the Fandango Ballroom have heard this all before and despair of Charity ever accepting her lot. They all want out but only the irrepressible Charity has the naivety to attempt an escape from the life of a paid-by- the- dance hostess. After failing miserably to get an office job, she finds herself stuck in an elevator with a claustrophobic Oscar. Is he the next disaster or will she actually rise above her circumstances?

As played by Verity Hunt-Ballard, Charity is child-like and warm. Hunt-Ballard is a bona-fide star and her range, vocal and emotional, is wonderful. She can belt out when required, no doubt about it. If My Friends Could See me Now is a show stopper. But her wistful rendering of Where Am I Going  begins with a breathy alto and rises to then falls from that clear soprano that smashes down a register as Charity threatens to break. Her body language is never less than big and broad, personifying for the audience the target that Charity makes of herself. For the finale she sits and closes for the first time and tries to convince herself and us that she is indeed The Bravest Individual.

Martin Crewes as Oscar, Vittorio and Charlie is a vocal and emotional match for her. Their scenes together are truthful and quite sweet, especially in Vittorio’s apartment. His three characters are clearly defined and his Oscar changes from saviour to just another creep with a sympathetic neurosis. Debora Krizak as Nickie and Kate Cole as Helene make a strong triumvirate with Hunt Ballard especially in the wistfully brassy Something Better Than This. Big voices, big hearts and dreams but going nowhere.

This production is going somewhere though, it’s touring after it finishes its run here and the staging by  Owen Phillips reflects that.

Few changes have been made in the staging since the Hayes production. Chairs, screens that double as mirror and scrim and a chaise are all that is needed for this exuberant production.

The costumes by Tim Chappel evoke the period and support the talented ensemble as they double up roles.

The shiny sparkly Pompeii Club costumes are fun and they put the choreography on display during The Rich Man’s Frug.

Andrew Hallsworth’s choreography is a delight. It’s character filled and very well realised by the cast. Combined with savvy direction by Dean Bryant it moves the story along and gives depth to the characters. I can’t agree with his choice for the ending which is a downer and the audience is eerily quiet as they move out of the auditorium. It’s a musical, dramatic yes but not a drama, give us something to hum and be excited by as we leave.

This choice aside, every other decision is designed for audience engagement. In There’s Gotta Be Something Better Than This, the 3 girls are trapped in a V shaped mirrored alley bemoaning their lives but when they aspire, the stage opens up and their dreams expand. Eventually, as reality sets back in , the trap closes them down again. The show is full of these little extra subtleties.

Like Ross Graham’s lighting. It’s colourful and exciting and it adds dimension and places the action. In a less sure hand audience might have been smacked with fast cuts and flashing and moving lights and every absurd psychedelic colour. Lighting as its own show. But here the colour mix is rich and red and it pulses rather than flashes and supports rather detracts from the cast.

This really is a smashing production and a great first musical of the year.

A Sydney Opera House production in association with Luckiest Productions, Neil Gooding Productions and Tinderbox Productions, SWEET CHARITY is playing the Playhouse, Sydney Opera House until the 8th of February.