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| Christie, in what was supposed to be Pure Blonde, which then became Show People |
There’s no people like show people
They smile when they are low...
I’ve seen Christie Whelan-Browne on stage numerous times – in many
Production Company shows (like The Boy Friend, Sugar, The Producers), at the
Melbourne Theatre Company (in The Drowsy Chaperone and The Importance of Being
Earnest), in big musicals (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,
Xanadu), small musicals (Once We Lived Here) and cabaret (Britney Spears: The
Cabaret).
She’s the kind of performer whose name will make me want to
see a show more, if I’m ever uncertain. Each and every time I see her, I still
wish I saw her on stage more often – because she can sing and dance and always
creates rich and complex characters, when the show requires it. She’s been in
three shows with Geoffrey Rush and has pretty much stolen the show from him
each and every time.
If this feels like I’m getting carried away, it’s true. But
this is the kind of roll I get on when I talk about her work. This is the kind
of excitement I get when I hear she’s in something else.
I’m also a big fan of writer/director Dean Bryant’s small
scale musical projects – Prodigal, Once We Lived Here and Britney Spears: The
Cabaret. The Britney show, a one woman show written for Christie,
accomplished something I didn’t think was possible – a narrative where I cared
about Britney Spears. I mean, it’s not like media attention lavished on the pop
starlet has been kind, so it was a bit of a revelation that Christie and Dean
were able to make a show filled with nuance and sadness and pop music madness.
After hearing they were collaborating again on a show called
Pure Blonde, I was excited. When I read reviews from Adelaide, the show had
morphed into Show People – a collection of six characters, mostly monologues,
for Christie to show off her amazing range.
You know how much I gushed in the opening two paragraphs?
You know how much I already enjoyed her work? Show People raises that several
more levels. Each character clearly defined. Each character a progression
through the life of an actor: from WAAPA grad tearing tickets at Chapel Off
Chapel, through regularly working but “just”
the Elphaba stand-by, and then “straight acting, bad acting” gay chorus boy, to
a well-known “name” actor who sexually harasses his co-stars, to an ageing
actress who got her start on Young Talent Time but whose star is fading, to end
with a man who has seen it all on the Australian stage over his seventy year
career.
It’s the progression from hopeful youth to wistful nostalgia
that makes this more than just a showcase for Christie – the writing is superb,
the direction is tight and to the point – and she elevates Show People into a
tour de force. When the show was developed as Pure Blonde, it was supposed to
undermine the “dumb blonde” cliche. With Show People, its focus is much wider –
show business itself, from its glitz out front to the awful stuff that can
happen back stage.
It’s not that the show marches from the hope of the graduate
to the bitterness of the actor at the end of his working life, it’s that there’s
something in the struggle that has always been there and always will. As the
first character says “When you study to become a doctor, you become a doctor.
When you study to be an actor, you are rarely employed as an actor. And
Christie didn’t even go to drama school!”
There’s a bit of self-reflexive wit in the show, about
Christie, about Dean Bryant and his collaborator Matthew Frank, but about the
industry as a whole, that they know so very well. We are given a rousing
musical medley at the start, because that’s what you expect from a Christie and
Dean show. And then something darker and more troubling weaves its way in.
And somehow, even on a stage all by herself (with Matt on
piano), Christie – with each passing character – manages to steal the show from
herself. Over and over again.
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