Comedy Festival: Strangelove! A New Cold War Musical

Strangelove!Strangelove! A New Cold War Musical

Melbourne International Comedy Festival
Fortyfivedownstairs
4-28 April
Tue-Sat 8:15pm

Strangelove! The Musical could easily be one of the runaway hits of this year’s Festival. With a creative carriage drawn by stallions named “Ambition”, “Aplomb” and “Stanley Kubrick”, the course is being plotted perfectly to plan. It is a preview performance, and already the theatre is nearing capacity…

There is an impressive fearlessness about this show. Impressive and infectious. We are watching a small troupe, sparingly resourced, attempting a radical reworking of one of the twentieth century’s most loved iconic satires, dicing with matters of the gravest political significance, and doing it all through song.

It helps that the songs are good. Creators Dave Harmon and Mark Sutton are keen miners of musical theatre convention, serving their various comedic needs appropriately. The “Red Phone Rag” is a delightful cold-war cacophony, and “Learn to Love the Bomb” rings out like a crafted broadway ensemble classic. The music is largely prerecorded which at times lends a regrettable tinny taste to the production, which is only notable against the vigorous and immediate energy of the cast.

The performances are justly theatrical, identifying the production as a beast apart from the 1964 film. As manic military tumescence “Jack D. Ripper”, Jon Williams is a seething treat, wielding his gattling gun with abandon and delivering his musical descent into madness with a troubling familiarity. Toby Truslove and Simon Greiner give terrific turns as the vexed warring leaders, and Zoe Norton Lodge lends her formidable pipes to a potent “Major Kong”.

Intriguing, however, is Greiner’s “Dr. Strangelove”. In the unenviable position of succeeding Peter Sellers, one senses the scrutiny of the audience. Thankfully, Greiner doesn’t retreat from building on the foundations of the original portrayal, and he successfully dilates the essence of Sellers’ Stangelove into the heightened sphere of live theatre.

Comparisons to the original are indeed the lot of the remake. One wonders if the creators could have taken greater liberties with Kubrick’s material to make this show a more dynamic and unorthodox departure, but as a musical re-rendering of a comic masterpiece, it is a tremendous success.

Make no mistake, this show will sell. In the coming weeks, Strangelove seats will be harder to obtain than bunker-space in a nuclear winter.

Click here for the show’s website.

April 8, 2007 | Filed under Theatre by Benedict Hardie

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