Dumped! The Musical We’ve All Been Through by Emma Powell.

Menopause The Musical has a lot to answer for, some of it good – some of it bad. But what it has done is pave the way for a series of similarly themed shows to make their way on to the Australian stage - albeit masquerading as legitimate musicals. It has also made it possible for a lot of first time ticket buyers to access an appealing, uplifting, live theatre experience.

Dumped! is the creative brainchild of the outrageous Emma Powell, who is responsible for the runaway hit Bustin’ Out – which continues to play to packed houses wherever it goes. Like its predecessors, Dumped! explodes like an oestrogen laced time-bomb and certainly has its predominantly female audience rolling in the aisles. And there are laughs aplenty – mainly due to the expert comic timing and talent of the four leading ladies. The show has been cast to perfection with four of the most versatile performers, in the form of Colette Mann, Jodie Gilles, Amanda Levy and knockout newcomer Meghan O’Shea – definitely one to look out for in the future.

Harmony (Mann) runs a self-help group for heartbroken gals who have recently been dumped – Dumpee’s Anonymous. As Act One unfolds we get the chance to glimpse at three very different women, who all have one thing on common – they’ve just been dumped. Sue (Gilles), the housewife of twenty-something years who gets shelved for a younger model; Vera (Levy) the man-hating karate chopping man-eating stalker; and Ella (O’Shea), sweet and naïve when it comes to men she chooses to date. We then share their various stories, and commiserate with them, and laugh at how they ultimately triumph over their personal unhappiness.

The basic idea of the show works, but the book and score still need some solid work to bring them up to code. Overall it is the creatives that tend to let this production down. The fourth wall gets torn down (and rebuilt) one too many times – with the characters not only speaking directly to the audience, but with the addition of unnecessary audience participation. The direction was laboured, needed to be a little more savvy and slick, and the show feels somewhat overwritten and under rehearsed – a new show needs more than just 3 weeks rehearsal to break it in.

The musical ‘score’ is a pastiche of some original songs, mixed with existing songs and other songs with rewritten lyrics (a la Menopause). Unfortunately there are no memorable songs to speak of - except perhaps for the ‘lovingly ripped-off’ versions of “My Favourite Things” and “Court of King Caractacus”. Dumped! will naturally appeal to the lowest common audience denominator, which is a good thing, because half the battle is won when a show knows who it appeals to. However, no review, good or bad, is going to change the mind of the audience member this show is targeted at, and that is a good thing.

Paul Dellit
 

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