Teatro at the Italian forum, May 29
7/10
Just as Michael Dorsey becomes confused masquerading as Dorothy Michaels to play the Nurse in a fruitcake musical called Juliet’s Curse, Tootsie is confused about what sort of musical it is. Most of the time it’s a comedy, and often a very funny one, with music and lyrics by David Yazbek (of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels fame, currently at Hayes Theatre) and book by Robert Horn. Then, just when you least expect it, it starts lathering up the soap, and these otherwise comedic characters sing soppily of their (gulp) feelings.
This 2018 musical derives from the 1982 film starring Dustin Hoffman as an actor who’s so opinionated as to be unemployable, and who shoots for a female role out of desperation. The film had Dorothy winning a part in a TV series; here, it’s in a Broadway musical.
Just as Hoffman’s performance made you gradually forget that a man was playing Dorothy, so Andrew Bevis pulls the same trick here – which is a bigger challenge: Bevis doesn’t just have to act as Dorothy, he has to sing as her. He pulls it off with verve, polish and charm.
Directed and choreographed by Cameron Michael, this was the show’s Australian premiere, a feather in the cap of Leichardt’s still-new Teatro, a bold venture fulfilling a much-needed function, which deserves to succeed.
Dan Potra’s bare-bones set suggests money is tight, but not much is needed to conjure a rehearsal room, there’s ample space for the dancing, and a bar or apartment spring to life with props.
Elenoa Rokobaro brings her howitzer contralto to the female lead of Julia Nichols, who’s playing Juliet in Juliet’s Curse, and Tyran Stig steals almost every scene he’s in as Jeff Slater, Michael’s flatmate and a struggling writer. Jeff would seem to be dear to the hearts of Yazbek and Horn, having many of the best lines and easily the funniest song in Jeff Sums it Up.
Lachlan O’Brien entertainingly plays Ron Carlisle, the show’s petulant, lascivious director, becoming a character reminiscent of Richard E. Grant. Brendan Irving and Chris Huntley-Turner are also amusing, the former as Max Van Horn (an actor as thick as a Besser brick) and the latter as Stan Fields (Michael’s agent, who’s as dry as set cement). Alana Tranter and Donna Lee complete the leads, all well-supported by a nine-strong ensemble.
Yazbek’s score doesn’t effervesce like his work in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, however, and probably his finest song, musically, Gone, Gone, Gone, a hot soul number sung by Rokobara, was undone by the backing vocals drowning out the 11-strong orchestra, directed by Nicholas Till. The ballads are not just forgettable, they actually undermine the show’s mood and pacing, because the characters shed all semblance of wit when they sing them. Funny people are still funny when they’re sad – sometimes more so.
Until June 21.