Not Finished with You Yet!

The time is now and the government (for some never defined or explored reason) has decreed that no marriage is to last longer than thirteen years.  After that, no fault, no cost divorce is automatic - and compulsory.    

This premise is preposterous, but it certainly allows Dick Gross to open up a whole raft of questions about contemporary relationships: marriage – can it or should it last? – fidelity, fertility, loneliness, surrogate pregnancy, step-parenting, the joys – and pains - of staying single, sex and sex toys, and the bitchy-but-frank friendships between women. 

Gross puts all these things on stage via bright and energetic performances, racy, witty songs, dance routines, and some very explicit dialogue.  (The publicity suggests parents not bring their children.)  Under Deputy Conductor Lachlan Mackenzie-Spencer up-tempo song follows song at rapid pace. Musical Director, Martine Wengrow, was in the audience – her first chance to see the show she has musically guided till now.

Our characters meet up at their twenty-five-year high school reunion.  Betty (Cristina D’Agostino) and Lecaysia (Leah Zilberman) are thrilled about the new law and can’t wait to escape their marriages to dull Dan (Matthew Hamilton) and would-be alpha-male Anthony (Matt Heyward) respectively. 

But Kate (Christie Whelan Browne) and ever modest Rupert (Rohan Browne) definitely do not want to divorce; they’re still happily married – in fact, very happily married – with a 15-year-old daughter, Ellen (Lauren Gunson).  Ellen, however, is all for the new law: if her parents don’t divorce, they’ll be freaks, which is also the (ambivalent) attitude of Kate and Rupert’s friends.  Thus, the plot device and dramatic question: can Kate and Rupert beat the new law and stay together? 

Christie Whelan Browne, who as we know can do anything, is then our determined heroine in a story where her girlfriends are much more flawed – selfish, merciless, sexy, and in Lecaysia’s case promiscuous.  But it’s in the nature of things, that they’re more fun.

As a very contemporary sub-plot, gay schoolmate Lance (Dinesh Mathew) wants to fill the ‘hole in his soul’ by becoming a parent and now he’s looking for a willing womb.  Kate, who can be impulsive (as we find out later) and a bit of a bully, nominates her happily single sister Maria (Alexia Brinsley) who in turn is not happy about this… (Brinsley turns out to be a terrific singer.)

On balance, Not Finished with You is pretty much the story of the women.  Mr Gross’s blokes are somewhat shadowy, although Matt, Dan and another fellow (Alec Gilbert) do get a number in a urinal where they can let it hang out (so to speak), talk about dick length and lament middle-aged disappointments (‘Urinal Lamentation’).  By contrast, the girls score what is probably the best song in the show, ‘Caffeinated Conversation’ in which they indulge in no-holds-barred (verbal) sparring.

Of course, it all ends up in court, under the eye of a supercilious Judge (Alec Gilbert again, enjoying himself hugely).  All Kate has in support of her application is ‘love’ and prosecutor Taylor (Rebecca Cullinan) is happy to pour vitriol on that…

By the way, Dick Gross was once the Mayor of the City of Port Phillip and here he is as librettist, composer and book writer for a fun piece of musical theatre. Glimpsed in the foyer, his wardrobe is still of the flamboyant, ‘hey-look-at-me’ variety – and good luck to him.  Our audience clearly and audibly had a very good time – not least because Not Finished with You Yet ­has so many recognisable but usually off-limits elements. 

Michael Brindley

Photographer: Simon Kosmer