My Brilliant Career

This iconic Australian novel seems an unlikely contender for a musical adaptation. However, this production transforms the novel into a vibrant contemporary performance that inevitably sweeps the audience away. This is thanks to a variety of strengths that make this an unmissable and fabulously idiosyncratic Australian experience.

The music and the lyrics are written with humour and wit, targeting a contemporary or youthful audience. The songs are catchy but not trite, they are melodic but in no way soppy. The music is captivating and incorporates a blend of rock and pop styles to generate a very wide appeal. 

The casting of this show is particularly brilliant. It involves a highly accomplished ensemble of musicians who are also highly talented singers and actors. Each cast member gives a very impressive performance merging the music, the emotions, and the actions into a seamless journey of sheer joyous and impish fun. The highly dynamic mix of music, song and theatre is often electrifying.

Kala Gare (Sybylla Melvyn) leads this absolutely astonishing cast whose energy and synergy is so palpable it becomes infectious. The performers exhibit not only multiple talents but also great flexibility in their acting, traversing a variety of roles and making them plausible and amusing:  Raj Labade (Harry/Peter/Ensemble), Ana Mitsikas (Grannie/Rose Jane/Ensemble), Christina O’Neill (Mother/ Helen/Mrs M’Swat /Ensemble), Cameron Bajraktarevic-Hayward (Frank/Ensemble), Melanie Bird (Gertie/Blanche/Ensemble), Drew Livingston (Father/Jay-Jay/M’Swat /Ensemble), Lincoln Elliott (Jimmy/Horace/Ensemble), Victoria Falconer (Ensemble), Jarrad Payne (Ensemble).

Gare brings a vibrancy and relentless energy to the performance that literally blows the audience away. Her voice, her demeanour and her spirit inhabit the role in a wonderfully natural and authentic manner. She takes complete charge of the persona and complete control of the role. Labade gives Harry a great deal of charm and the chemistry with Gare is palpable allowing the romance enormous sensuality.

The creative team includes Victoria Falconer (Musical Director/Additional Music Arrangements), Amy Campbell (Choreographer), Marg Horwell (Set & Costume Designer), Matt Scott (Lighting Designer), James Simpson (Orchestrator/Vocal Arranger), Joy Weng (Sound Designer), Miranda Middleton (Associate Director) and Savanna Wegman (Associate Set & Costume Designer). Their collective efforts in creating an atmosphere that is faithful to the book yet relevant to a contemporary audience is extremely artful, clever and well thought out.

The production takes the feminist elements of the story very seriously but without being humourless or strident. This is a very original and refreshing interpretation of the novel and the opening night culminated in one of the most spontaneous and genuine standing ovations that I have seen in quite some time. 

Patricia Di Risio 

Photographer: Pia Johnson

Flora Georgiou also reviewed My Brilliant Career

Sybylla Melvyn, performed by Kala Gare, rocks the house as with an opening song that is reminiscent of the late iconic Oz rock goddess Chrissie Amphlett; a powerhouse performance by Gare in the second season of the multi-award-winning musical adaptation of the Australian literary classic My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin (1901). The book by Sheridan Harbridge and Dean Bryant, together with Bryant’s colourful lyrics and Mathew Frank’s vibrant music, provide a vivid palette for director Anne-Louise Sarks, who musters up outstanding razzle -dazzle performances by her musician /actor ensemble, in collaboration with Victoria Falconer as musical director and Amy Campbell as choreographer.

Miles Franklin’s novel was published in the same year as Federation, a difficult time for women seeking independence, as strict gender roles were rigidly in place and women who ventured to break from the norm were admonished and most suffered the dire consequences.

Franklin states that her book My Brilliant Career is “…simply a yarn - a real yarn”. It’s set in a place called Possum Gully where Sybylla, the eldest of many siblings, lives with her family. Her alcoholic father and her mother married for love endure hardship and poverty. Sybylla is sent to live with her grandmother at the affluent homestead of Caddagut, to be groomed for marriage at the age of sixteen, with one of the eligible bachelors who visit the estate.

Kala Gare, superbly cast as Sybylla, carries loads of rambunctious energy in every scene. Gare flourishes under Sarks’ powerful direction as the feisty young woman with a sensitive artistic temperament and in a big loud voice announces that she is “a thirsty girl”, hungry to experience life on the flip side.

The impressionistic orange orchard set is breathtaking – just as it is for Sybylla in her call to adventure when she arrives at Caddagut - with frivolity and haste she basks in delight and wonderment at her exciting new lifestyle. The lighting designer Matt Scott and set design and costume (Marg Howell) have conjured up a stunning cultivated Australian landscape, yet with reminders of ongoing droughts and the damage to the land by the scorching sun also poignantly referenced.

Sybylla’s romantic interests are playfully innocent, flirtatious with sparks of passion, including a wonderful ‘wooing’ boat sequence with Harry Beecham performed with eloquence by Raj Labade - irresistibly cheeky and delightfully charming for the audience. A brief encounter with her female nemesis, the femme fatale gold-digger Blanche performed by Melanie Bird, teaches Sybylla to embrace her wild spirit and be free.

Sarks’ ensemble team of actor/musicians jump in and out of character accordingly – hang about playing music on a revolving golden grass set. Plonked in the centre is Sybylla’s much loved musical instrument, the ‘shabby’ looking piano, a clever symbolic point of reference for her evolving and de-evolving life.

A musical fusion of various genres includes colonial, folk, rock, up tempo sixties, bush band rhythms and classical sounds. Stagehands are added into the mix, making eye contact with Gare as they hand over microphones and or adjust equipment on stage, exuding a ‘cool rock’ concert feel. Sound designer Joy Weng enhances the dramatic highlights with ambience and punchy effects.

In the middle of Act Two, Gare’s rendition of “Gargoyle” on piano is delivered with a defeated emotion, now with the experience under her belt of having ‘loved’ and lost, her determination for independence is fiercer than ever.

Hats off to the wonderful team of exuberantly talented actors, musicians and creatives that have crafted a magical and highly imaginative theatrical experience that is exciting, warm, generous and real for all ages.

Happening now in Melbourne launching into a blazing tour across this sunburnt country, audiences hold on to your seats and be prepared for a wild musical night at the theatre.

Flora Georgiou