Ladies in Black

QTC and QPAC have joined forces to present the world premiere season of Australia’s latest original musical, which will subseuqently have a season at the MTC. Stage Whispers’ Peter Pinne spoke with director Simon Phillips and actress Christen O’Leary about the project and its development.

Ladies in Black is based on Madeleine St. John’s classic 1993 coming-of-age novel about a young girl in the late 1950s who gets a seasonal job in a Sydney department store (think David Jones), changes her first name, and becomes embroiled in the world of haute couture fashion and the lives of her co-workers. The musical has been adapted from the book by Carolyn Burns and has music and lyrics by Tim Finn (Split Enz/Crowded House), his first original score for a musical.

From the beginning Finn has been the driving force behind the whole project which has already had three workshops since 2013. According to Phillips, “Tim alerted me to the book, which he’d picked up at Brisbane Airport, and been inspired to write some songs for. Paradoxically, given its determined gentility, I found it a total page turner. I was totally engaged by the characters, and certain moments were rivetingly evocative to me. I suggested to Tim that Carolyn (who, like our lead character, actually had a part-tine job at David Jones when she was younger) would be an ideal candidate to adapt it. She’s done a fantastic job.”

I asked Simon what qualities he thinks make the book perfect for musicalisation.

“In some ways it’s a little unlikely, in that no boy gets and loses a girl (or vice versa), no barricades are stormed and there are no witches,” Simon said. “It’s a story of gentle and subtle storylines, but the accumulation of all of them make for a surprisingly rich and resonant experience. You get three happy endings for the price of one. And there is a sweet, suburban, chrysalis-to-butterfly story at the centre of it.”   

The protagonist’s story in the book is very delicate and light. What has been done to strengthen the role into a leading lady part?

“In the book, Lisa is an intelligent and inquisitive girl, but she’s also shy and terribly unworldly, so the plot kind of happens to her. She doesn’t drive it. She’s strangely passive, and in the book part of the joy is revelling in her ‘luck’ – that she meets the right people at the right time. We didn’t want to lose that entirely, but to be dramatically viable we had to clarify her desires and somewhat intensify her obstacles. So the character of her father, who in the book is essentially a passive-aggressive barrier to her ambitions, has been made a more articulate adversary, a more obvious hurdle.”

The story is female centric, which in these times with the success of Wicked and Legally Blonde is a good thing. But the male characters in these musicals have often been given short shrift. What has been done to strengthen them in this?

“Tim’s written them some great songs and while the cast is eight women to 3 men, I think the male characters emerge as clear and individual forces. There’s only one actively romantic male figure – the character played by Bobby Fox, Rudi. Perversely, Lisa’s love interest, if one could call it that, never appears onstage. The lack of a really strong onstage romance for the leading lady is another unusual (perhaps fool-hardy) thing about the show.”

Tim Finn has an enviable track record of writing hit songs. Is it likely some hits will emerge from his score or are the songs all heavily tied to character?

“There’s at least half a dozen complete ear-worms, but most of the songs are strongly connected to plot or characters. Tim’s ability to write to character is one of the great revelations of the project – it’s so exciting. But there’s one central song for Lisa (she has half a dozen) that’s sufficiently generic lyrically to become a hit I think. It’s about the lyrics. The melodies are nearly all hit material.”

Christen O’Leary agrees.

“This creative team has captured the perfect moments in the novel for music to soar,” says Christen. “And soar it does! Music has the ability to create something magical on stage - to break out moments of heightened emotion. St John has given Tim so many of these moments and he’s flown with them.”

And what about your character Magda?

“Magda is a Slovenian refugee who fled Eastern Europe following WW2. She has built a new, sensually comfortable life in Mosman, Sydney, with her beloved husband Stefan. She is also a devotee of couture fashion and the voluptuous, beautifully dressed, coiffed and manicured attendant of Model Gowns at Goode’s department store.”

Have you done a lot of research into the period in which the show is set?

“It’s one of the most fascinating aspects of the work for me. Of course I’m researching Magda’s European background and her path as a refugee following the war. Then there’s the fun of the couture research. And naturally Sydney in the late 50s…not simply styles, dress and deportment, but very particular social expectations, tones, idioms.”

This is your third original musical since the nineties when you did Horrortorio at La Boite, and The Sunshine Club for QTC. What is it about original work that attracts you?

“It’s always thrilling to be at the beginning of things. It’s hard work but there is a spirit of workmanship that takes over. You want to create a work that will inspire others to want to do future productions of it.”

What is it about musical theatre that thrills you?

“Nothing! Musicals scare the hell out of me! But for some reason I keep agreeing to do them. Must be something about feeding my children and paying the mortgage.”

Ladies in Black opens at the Playhouse, QPAC, Brisbane, and plays 14 November – 6 December, then plays a season at the Sumner Theatre, Melbourne, 16 January – 27 February. The cast includes Christen O’Leary, Naomi Price, Lucy Maunder, Bobby Fox, Kathryn McIntyre, Andrew Broadbent, Carita Farrar Spencer, Greg Stone, Kate Cole, Deidre Rubenstein and Sarah Morrison. Design is by Gabriela Tylesova, lighting by David Walters, orchestrations by Guy Simpson, and musical direction by Isaac Hayward.  

Originally published in the November / December 2015 edition of Stage Whispers