The Goodbye Girl

Some modest, enjoyable Broadway musicals like The Goodbye Girl (1993) never get a commercial production here. It’s taken 18 years for a Sydney production; a warm, enjoyable interpretation by Bankstown Theatrical Society, the debut production in their newly renovated theatre.

Based on the gentle, touching 1977 romantic film comedy starring Richard Dreyfuss and Marsha Mason, with a book by Neil Simon (adapting his own screenplay) and a score by Marvin Hamlisch (A Chorus Line), you’d expect that The Goodbye Girl would have lasted longer on Broadway than just over 200 previews and performances.

As usual, Neil Simon can be relied on for wit and humanity, and his libretto is the show’s strength.  

Diane Wilson (Director), Greg Crease (Musical Director) and Ronne Arnold Choreographer), a professional creative team working in community theatre, give the show a smooth, engaging production, with lots of warmth and charm.

Four strong central principals carry the bulk of the show, supported by effective cameos and dance routines from members of the fifteen strong supporting ensemble.

In our age of radio mics, this close quarters acoustic performance comes, refreshingly, direct from the performers to the audience. The projection, diction, and the balance with the backstage band via front of house speakers, is excellent throughout. This helps grant the warmth and intimacy essential for this show.

Actor Elliott and divorced mum Paula (together with her tween daughter Lucy) find themselves reluctant flat-mates, after Paula’s actor-boyfriend dumps her and sublets their apartment. An uneasy truce gives way to attraction, despite the fact that Elliott is yet another actor, about to leave town for a film gig.

Kate Young’s Paula is believably damaged and defensive, with an underlying vulnerability. She delivers vocally, and in a performance of credible dramatic range as she takes the play’s big emotional journey.

A nicely balanced dynamic between Young and Michael Lewis, as Elliott, shifts and re-balances well throughout. Lewis makes the transition from egotistical to likeable, with bruised ego, effectively.

Ashley Reid comes across with an appropriate blend of the precociousness and engaging as Paula’s daughter Lucy. Only occasionally does she seem a little pushed vocally.

As the larger-than-life landlady Mrs Crosby, Michele Lansdown reminds an audience just what projection is all about.

The challenges of the new venue are mostly met admirably, though the split focus as you watch scenes and duets split between bedrooms on extreme opposite edges of the stage, is a bit like being a tennis spectator.

In a script that still feels cinematic, in what is basically a bare box auditorium, the company has come up with an effective staging solution. The ensemble and crew are mobilized in well-drilled manoeuvres each time the setting moves from the apartment, shifting furniture as a four panel screen is moved into place, allowing Vince Cairncross’s attractive projections to suggest all the show’s other locations.

Sometimes The Goodbye Girl seems to over-musicalise the slight, romantic film. A little more wonderful Neil Simon script, supplanting a musical number or two, might smooth out jumps in the romantic plot, and make this charm piece even more charming.

This first production in their new, smaller venue suggests a promising shift to boutique musical theatre productions for Bankstown Theatrical Society.

Neil Litchfield.

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