The Great American Trailer Park Musical

New Theatre has come up with an aptly silly, bright piece of musical comedy fun for the ‘silly season.’

Lively, somewhat risqué small-scale American musical The Great American Trailer Park Musical is playing its Sydney premiere at New Theatre.

At trailer park “Armadillo Acres” in North Florida, agoraphobic Dr. Phil addicted housewife Jeannie struggles to leave her van following the kidnapping of her son 21 years earlier. Frustrated Hubbie Norbert finds love in the arms of stripper Pippi. When Pippi’s seriously deranged ex-boyfriend Duke turns up, things look like getting messy. Trailer park neighbours Betty (whose husband was killed by a whack to the back of the head by a random frypan), Lin (named for the linoleum floor where she was conceived) and Pickles (who thinks she is pregnant), form a sassy, gossipy Greek chorus and weigh in with a variety of roles along the way.

‘Trailer-trash,’ maybe; the characters left behind in the wake of the ‘Great American Dream’ are a pretty likeable bunch in this 90 minutes of affectionate silliness. They’re very funny, dropping great gags all night, and displaying a goofy, engaging sort of humanity.

Full of American pop culture, the musical, which first saw the light of day at the 2004 New York Music Theater Festival and opened Off-Broadway the following year,has an attractive hybrid score mixing disco and country blues with some engaging ballads.

As the trailer park trio, Shondelle Pratt, Lauren Kate Butler and Shannon McKinn enliven proceedings all night with good comic delivery and heaps of attitude. Agoraphobic housewife Jeannie receives a particularly sympathetic treatment from Keira Daley in the midst of the overt madness. Ines Vaz de Sousa vamps it saucily as seductress / stripper Pippi. Julian Raimundi’s Norbert is an appropriately insipid and needy male. As Duke, the bad-arse ex-boyfriend Max Newstead bursts on the scene late in the play to deliver the final twist.

It’s great to see a show that’s new to local stages in a capably staged, well performed, entertaining production like this one.

However, the show is clearly written with amplification in mind, so in this ‘unwired’ version some of the lyrics are rather muddy, despite the best efforts of the four musos, placed behind the action, to keep the music pulled back. One hopes the performers will further adjust the balance with diction and projection as the season continues. Adjustment of any choreographic moments that have performers singing upstage should be seriously considered. Best vocal results happen when the singers stand and deliver stage centre to fixed microphones.

That reservation aside, I’d encourage anyone in search of a bit of lively, slightly raunchy fun, to head along to The Great American Trailer Park Musical at New Theatre.

Neil Litchfield

Photos: Bob Seary