Pennsylvania Avenue

Bernadette Robinson’s one-woman show Songs for Nobodies turned her into a theatrical star, with critics searching for superlatives, wondering where she’d been hiding all these years. So the next idea had to be a good one.

It’s a risky idea too: she and her Australian creative team devised a particularly American show, drawing inevitable comparisons to Broadway and off-Broadway performers, who are, after all, rather good at this kind of thing.

But Pennsylvania Avenue would be hard for even the best Americans to beat. Robinson is an astounding performer. Her singing is all the more wondrous for its subtlety, the power is in its careful technique, allowing her to truly inhabit famous singers as she sings their standard tunes.

Pennsylvania Avenue tells the fictional stories of a White House aide Harper Clements and the big-name personalities she meets serving Presidents from the 1960s to 1990s. Barbra Streisand, Eartha Kitt, Peggy Lee, Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross, to name just some. Robinson plays Clements but the singers too, managing to capture the famous voices without imitation, finding a way to show her own talent rather than simply impersonating other people’s skills.

Wisely, Robinson has again teamed up with playwright Joanna Murray-Smith and director Simon Phillips, who were also responsible for Songs for Nobodies. Murray-Smith’s writing rockets things along, providing poetic moments but many humorous ones too. There are some slower moments in this 90-minute show but it’s never dull.

At first, after Marilyn singing “Happy Birthday, Mr President”, we’re teased with song snippets, frustrated even, that we’re denied full songs. But this then adds impact to the next complete number (Streisand’s “Don’t Rain on my Parade”), and allows the show to build to a crescendo.

The show also has a generous heart. Clements is an engaging character: a thoroughly entertaining everywoman in an extraordinary situation. She has a secret story and the way this is developed by Murray-Smith is revelatory. Clements discovers that Presidents and famous singers are sympathetic to her difficulties – and she will always be a much harsher critic of herself than anyone else.

Phillips’ direction is tight, jumping seamlessly through time; Robinson changes not just characters but scenes in an instant. Place shifts through the clever use of a table or even the placement of a foot on a stool. The set is a sheer curtain that creates an oval-office space and partially hides the band. Hanging in this oval office are six Presidential portraits, which also act cleverly as video screens to change settings and reveal apparently historic photos.

This show debuted at the Melbourne Theatre Company in 2014 and is now playing Sydney after a Brisbane season. Let’s hope Robinson’s following continues to grow, as she once again startles not just those who’ve seen her before but new audiences too.

Peter Gotting

Photographer: Jeff Busby