Review: Tomfoolery @ the Playhouse

Last Wednesday saw the opening night of the Melbourne Theatre Company’s final show for 2006, Tomfoolery. A musical review based upon the deliciously satirical works of American Tom Lehrer, the show strings together everything from standards such as ‘Poisoning the Pigeons in the Parks’ and ‘The Masochism Tango’ to songs the mathematician-turned-musician wrote for children’s educational television in the 1980’s. A framework of witty quotes based around Lehrer’s ability to send up seemingly every musical form in existence holds the show together.

The cast of Rhonda Burchmore, Mitchell Butel, Gerry Connolly, Bert Labonte, Melissa Madden-Gray gave uneven performances, as well as the unfortunate impression that they weren’t quite ready to open. Words were forgotten, and cues missed. The lighting technician was also off his mark several times throughout the evening.

All of this can be put down to opening night nerves, and is definitely not damning. It didn’t seem to faze the audience in the stalls (who were “of a certain age” as The Australian’s Peter Burch delicately put it.). They clapped and cheered at the end of the evening. Those of us in the dress circle, however, had a rather different experience of the night.

The fact that sightlines from the Playhouse balcony are so painfully acute that you end up focused on the crowns of the performers’ heads rather than their delivery, did not assist with my appreciation of the evening, but I did not walk away from Tomfoolery impressed. Certainly my companion for the night was underwhelmed: he fell asleep three times.

The songs themselves were great fun, although it helped that my 1970’s childhood means I’m just old enough to be familiar with some of them (Lehrer had his heyday in the 1950’s and 1960’s). Mitchell Butel displayed extraordinary versatility and Melissa Madden-Gray was also excellent, but Bert Labonte’s singing was often flat (although he did give a superb rendition of ‘The Old Dope Peddler’) while the stars of the show, Connolly and Burchmore, definitely failed to live up to their reputations, with Burchmore wooden, and Connolly painfully underprepared.

The biggest problem with Tomfoolery, however, was that the production was overblown. The performers were hamming it up when they should have been restrained, and jokes and gimmicks were hammered home with a startling lack of subtly.

It has been said that the best comedy is performed with a straight face. Under the combined direction of Ross Coleman and Simon Phillips, Tomfoolery is wearing a forced and manic grin.

“That’s what happens when you throw too much money at a simple idea,” opined the bloke seated behind me last Wednesday night, after the final curtain call.

I’m inclined to agree.

(Another review of the show appears here, in The Age.)