Heathers

Our reviews of the Brisbane and Melbourne seasons.

Peter Pinne reviewed the Brisbane season.

This sparkling high-energy production of Heathers made its Brisbane debut to such a foot-stamping and whooping reception that it looks like it’s sure to repeat its Sydney success. The production, which created such a buzz when it opened at Sydney’s Hayes Theatre last year, remains the same except for Kirby Burgess (Dirty Dancing) who has replaced Lucy Maunder who’s fulfilling her commitment to Ladies in Black in Melbourne.

The rock musical makeover of the cult 1989 movie which addressed teenage angst, date-rape, suicide, bomb threats, campus shootings and bullying is just as black as its screen counterpart. A dream ensemble cast of twelve sing and dance their way through this Gothic horror of high-school hell.

Jaz Flowers’ Veronica owned the stage with her piercing vocals and nice mix of vulnerability and grit. Kirby Burgess’ Heather was the perfect Queen-of-mean, sashaying around in an impossibly shoulder-padded top and delivering some rafter-raising vocals, whilst Stephen Madsen when needed brought menace to the Goth, JD.

In the multiple roles of football jocks and their gay fathers, Vincent Hooper and Jakob Ambrose had superb comic-timing and were great eye-candy stripped to their undies. Lauren McKenna also impressed as the nerdy Martha and as the space-agey teacher Ms Fleming. Cameron Mitchell’s choreography took pelvis-thrust to a new level, whilst the brilliant Bev Kennedy on keyboard kept the high-decibel band under tight control.

If all of the Hayes Theatre productions are as good as this, then let’s hope they tour more often.

Peter Pinne

Photographer: Darren Thomas

Alex Paige reviewed the Melbourne leg of the tour.

Arts Centre Melbourne. May 11 – 22, 2016.

Heathers: The Musical is an eyecatching, colourful production, with an all-singing, all-dancing cast who whip up a storm in some great setpieces ably choreographed by Cameron Mitchell. The costumes, lighting and set design all come together very effectively to create an exaggerated American high school world of privileged queen bitches and their ordinary student subjects.

The story, for those who aren't familiar with the 1980s cult movie on which this new musical version is based, is about Veronica Sawyer, a student whose skill at forgery renders her temporarily useful to the ruling triumvirate of Heathers - the most popular girls, who all bear the same first name - but quickly sees how vapid and shallow they are. When she then begins a relationship with JD, a brooding, dark-coated newcomer to the school, he tricks her into taking action that proves to be fatal, with darkly comic consequences for all concerned.

The movie is a black comedy that nevertheless has serious undertones and points to make. Some of this is lost in translation to the musical version, which goes for big, very poppy songs. The highlight of these for me was the opening number of act two, "I Love My Dead Gay Son", which is a good example of the approach taken to the material - two fathers, bemoaning the apparent suicide of their jock sons due to their secret sexual relationship (according to the forged suicide notes), during the course of the song recall their own sexual encounter with each other on a long-ago fishing trip. As the song ends, they embrace lustfully and begin tongue-kissing - and this is all staged during the boys' memorial service.

This kind of material is so inherently over the top that it cries out for the sensibility of a John Waters movie, but instead director Trevor Ashley seemed to be playing it safe. In contrast to the highly stylised dance numbers, the dialogue-driven scenes were frequently played in a manner which undercut the humour, and overall there was a lack of a cohesive approach to the story.

Hilary Cole as Veronica delivered the strongest performance, while Stephen Madsen as JD never quite managed to evoke the dangerous edge that his character is clearly supposed to possess. As for the three Heathers, Lucy Maunder, Rebecca Hetherington and Hannan Fredericksen - again it seemed as though everyone was playing it safe in not making those characters too bitchy, but they really needed to be more so. The two jocks, Jakob Ambrose and Vincent Hooper, delivered plenty of eye candy as they were frequently stripped to their tighty whities, and Hooper in particular in the aforementioned "Dead Gay Son" number (where he played his own father) delivered some of the best moments of the night.

It's a genuinely funny show - although with so many of the laughs in the songs, there needs to be a concerted effort to ensure all the lyrics are audible, which wasn't the case at least where I was sitting - every time the music swelled in volume, the vocals were drowned out, with the exception of performer Lauren McKenna who was either better miked or was projecting more strongly than everyone else. But in order to really bring out the all the humour, the approach needs to be less tentative and more ironically knowing, more outrageously over the top.

Alex Paige

Melbourne photos by Kurt Sneddon