Metro Street
Book, music and lyrics by Matthew Robinson
State Theatre Company of South Australia
Arts Asia Pacific and Power Arts.
Dunstan Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre.
April 7 . Tickets $45 – $65. Bookings BASS 131 246
Until April 25.
Musicals can be about many things – Abba songs on an island, cats, 19th century France, three drag queens on a bus, or wicked witches from the west. But there is also, apparently, an iron rule that says that they must be uplifting, catchy and never too demanding or emotionally complex. So when composer, Matthew Robinson, takes terminal illness as his subject, he would appear to be defying some powerful orthodoxies. However, astutely guided by director, Geordie Brookman, an outstanding State Theatre Company cast, and his own excellent book and music, Robinson has produced a work that is not only musically appealing and dramatically strong, it also moved and delighted the opening night premiere audience.
Set in Melbourne, or on any street where we live, Metro Street is about a family – son Chris, a graduate student (Cameron Goodall) his mother, Sue (Debra Byrne) and grandmother, Jo (Nancye Hayes). Chris is living with girlfriend Amy (Jude Henshall) in a Fitzroy apartment alongside neighbour Kerry, just arrived from Wangaratta (Verity Hunt-Ballard) It seems the only big question in his life (and Amy’s) is whether he takes a scholarship to London. Then the real bombshell strikes – and news of Sue’s cancer brings him dutifully, but fecklessly, back home to help Jo look after his angry and desolate mother.
It is the slow and arduous adjustments to these realities which gives Metro Street its emotional impact. And the performers are uniformly excellent – the very capable Cameron Goodall as the often faltering son, Nancye Hayes’s crackling humour as the staunch and outspoken grandmother, and Debra Byrne’s startling honesty and directness. Jude Henshall and Verity Hunt-Ballard (assisted by Jo Stone’s choreography) also bring a fresh distinctiveness to the young women. The production values – Victoria Lamb’s capacious set, Geoff Cobham’s inventively sympathetic lighting and Jane Rossetto’s impeccable sound – all add to Geordie Brookman’s ensemble success.
Robinson’s music (splendidly directed by Matthew Carey on keyboards, with an accompanying trio including Sam Leske on guitar) is sweetly melodic, with minor key cadences reminiscent of Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon and even Joe Jackson. Never derivative, though, and with lucid, carefully crafted lyrics, the songs give the performers every opportunity – from the full-cast title opener and the artful Mobile Phone Quintet, to the romantic duet, Love is and Kerry and Amy’s upbeat A Girl like Me. But it is Debra Byrne’s spine-tingling solo, Dignity, Sue’s overwhelming cry from the heart at her impending death, that especially reveals Matthew Robinson’s ambition – and his memorable achievement.
“Impeccable cast, staging and music hit all the right notes”, The Australian, April 9, 2009, p.10.