Generation Why
Hayden Tee
Dunstan Playhouse
June 10.
Magpie Blues
Ursula Yovich
The Space
June 17.
Adelaide Festival Centre.
Bookings BASS 131 246. Cabaret Festival until June 20.

It perhaps comes as no surprise that a show called Generation Why ? raises more questions than it answers. Now in his late 20s, talented singer Hayden Tee is contemplating his Saturn Return, that point in the astrological cycle when thresholds are crossed and life choices are consolidated. For Mr Tee everything is connected – his life history (and those of his antecedents in small town northern New Zealand) and a world century of war, pestilence, technological revolution, MTV and Pacman.

At times earnest, often convoluted, Tee illustrates his place in the cycles of the cosmos with murky back-projections of family snapshots and NZ Tourism promos. In among this, ably accompanied by pianist and arranger, Nigel Ubrihien, he sings his heart out with such 80s anthems as In the Air Tonight, Spandau Ballet’s Through the Barricades and a mawkish Christopher Cross/Enya medley of Sailing and Orinoco Flow. Other items include 99 Red Luft Balloons, a hip-hop ode to booty in the style of Gilbert and Sullivan, and an African arrangement of Don’t Dream its Over.

There is something endearingly artless about Tee’s provincial kiwi memoir but, when he goes into a stage persona, things get really interesting. Inhabiting John Hinckley from Sondheim’s Assassins, he delivers a chilling performance of Unworthy of Your Love and demonstrates why Hayden Tee is such a hot property in music theatre. It’s a world away from Maungaturoto.

Ursula Yovich’s Magpie Blues is also a personal work – of growing up in Darwin with an Aboriginal mother from Arnhem Land and a father born in Serbia. As she puts it – she’s a Serborigine. It is a story infused with sadness, love, separation and dislocated cultural identity. Like the magpie, she is neither black nor white, disconnected from both her “skin” ties and a Europe she has never seen.

A premiere production for the Cabaret Festival, it is undercooked. Yovich has an ambitious amount of script and she lost her thread a number of times. The presentation also seems emotionally raw. The material is close to her heart and tears are often near the surface. For the performer’s sake, this show has some steadying to do.

But, for Ursula Yovich, music is her great joy and she sings everything from Fields of Gold and Let it Be to Tina Turner and Aretha Franklin. Her range is impressive – Bocelli after Caruso, the Theme from Monkey, some haunting originals and (with excellent support from the band and MD Peter Casey) a telling rendition of Over the Rainbow.

Murray Bramwell

The Australian, 20 June, 2009.

This review contains an error which was pointed out by Hayden Tee’s agent. It was not Hinckley’s song from Assassins which he sang – and I expected himn to sing from the build-up – but instead Creep by Radiohead. My mistake and my apology to Mr Tee.