Singin’ In the Rain

Singin’ In the Rain is one of the all-time great movie musicals, if not the greatest, but the stage adaptation is not one of the all-time great stage musicals. Stretching the 103 minute film to over 2-hours labors the story and diffuses the wit even with a book by screenplay writers Betty Comden and Adolph Green. The other problem is the story’s set-up which is slow and there are no big production numbers in the first act and only one in the second.

Despite these obvious limitations and the fact that whoever plays Don Lockwood, Cosmo Brown and Kathy Selden are inevitably going to be compared with the movie’s iconic performances of Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor and Debbie Reynolds, I’d give Redcliffe Musical Theatre’s production of it 3 stars out of 5.

It’s not an easy show to stage with its black-and-white movie clips and a first-act finale with the leading character dancing in the rain, but director Madeleine Johns achieved it. The black-and-white video clips were excellent and time and time again punched life into piece.

Barbara Bloodworth’s wonderfully evocative flapper-era costumes were a plus as was Meredith Johns’ choreography.

Performance-wise, Sydney import, the lanky six-foot-five James Barry was a funny Cosmo and the best tap-dancer on stage, with good work being done by Kelly Smith as the ingénue Kathy. Clay English’s Don Lockwood had pitch problems, but handled his terpsichorean duties well, while Liana Hanson as the squeaky-voiced Lina Lamont almost walked away with the show. Her second-act solo, “What’s Wrong with Me?” added to the stage version for the U.S. tour and originally sung in the 1948 Frank Sinatra movie The Kissing Bandit, was the best song on the night. John Sayles as the studio boss R.F. Simpson was solid, with Dale Shearman’s movie director Roscoe Dexter also making his mark.

Musically the orchestrations were frequently beyond the capabilities of the young musicians, and the production would have benefited by some scene change music, tighter lighting cues, and dropping the unnecessary video compilation shown during the play-out music. It only made a long show, longer! But hey, the company is young, this is only their fourth show, and the talent on display in a show that’s a technical minefield, deserves encouragement.

Peter Pinne