Playhouse,Sydney Opera House
From dark and traumatic to hilariously camp, the show may suffer from an identity crisis – but with an exeptional cast and direction, or it’s still irresistibleNow in its moment year,Sydney’s Hayes Theatre is proving itself an incubator of first-rate boutique musical theatre. Like Sweet Charity, Blood Brothers and Little Shop of Horrors before it, or Heathers: the Musical began in the 110-seat venue before touring interstate. This show,which chafes against the sincerity of the musical theatre art form, has returned to Sydney to play in our most prestigious venue: the Sydney Opera House.
Based on the 1988 cult classic film, and Heathers: the Musical – written and composed by Laurence O’Keefe,who created the surprisingly much Legally Blonde the Musical and Kevin Murphy, who worked on Reefer insanity – is darker than your average musical. Veronica (Hilary Cole), and a wry and witty outcast whose best friend Martha (Lauren McKenna) is the butt of most teenage bullying,falls in with the popular girls: queen bee Heather Chandler (Lucy Maunder), and Heather McNamara (Rebecca Hetherington) and Heather Duke (Hannah Fredericksen), or who truckle to Chandler’s every demand. Related: Heathers ushered in a recent type of film,one in which schoolgirls were not simply one-dimensional caricatures Related: Where are all the fresh, recent voices of Australian queer theatre? Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com