Performer Manda Rozen-Flannery appears on stage in basic black, and introduces herself as Liza Minnelli. She knows, given the context of the Midsumma Festival, that we might have been expecting a man in a dress. And she’s right, there’s been a string of men playing Liza in cabaret clubs across the world for decades. It’s a great laugh to start us off.
Liza’s
Good Judy is a
tribute to Liza Minnelli and Judy Garland, as Liza reminisces about her mother
and Judy reminisces about the good-old-days that were never really that good.
Judy had been performing since she was thirty months old, thanks to a
determined stage mom. And Liza was the daughter of Judy Garland. What else was
she to do?
Stories
give way to songs and this is the true power of the show – Rozen-Flannery is a
graduate of the Musical Theatre course at the Queensland Conservatorium and she
nails number after number. Maybe This Time and The World Goes Round
being the absolute highlights. And, of course, after a planted heckler shouts “We
love you Judy. Sing Over the Rainbow” a couple of times, she finally
gets to that.
It’s a big
ask to pour yourself into the roles of two classic divas and embody their style
– their classic dress sense, the way they tell stories and their iconic voices.
Rozen-Flannery meets the challenge head on – both Judy and Liza are easy to
parody, so she should be congratulated for the restraint she shows and the way
she honours both.
Rozen-Flannery
modulates from sultry to brassy to belting and shifts effortlessly between
mother and daughter, without ever smudging the lines between the two. As much
as the show loves to draw parallel between their lives, the audience is never
confused as to who they are watching.
There were some technical hitches on the night I saw the show, but this didn’t dampen the performance or the audience’s enthusiasm. The show must go on, after all. (The show probably doesn’t need to drop in Liza performing All the Single Ladies, though - because I never need to be reminded that Sex and the City 2 exists.)
Liza’s
Good Judy doesn’t
have a lot new to tell us about the lives of these two very famous women, but
it does draw a compelling portrait of their relationship and the different
legacies they leave us. Rozen-Flannery’s voice is beautiful and lets us get
close to these women, even if we feel like we know them already.
- Keith Gow, Theatre First
Liza’s Good Judy played at the Motley Bauhaus as part of the Midsumma Festival. It closed on Friday night.
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