Fame: The Musical

This lively and spirited production of Fame serves as an impressive showcase for the cream of Adelaide’s emergent young musical theatre talent, the high-energy ensemble offering an abundance of names worth remembering. Chris Daniels’ sober direction, which shuns undue sensationalism in favour of emotional realism, ensures the production as a whole transcends its (sometimes kitsch) period trappings and is able to connect with a contemporary audience.

The growing pains of 10 teenage prodigies enrolled at New York’s prestigious High School of Performing Arts are chronicled with a disarming tenderness punctuated by moments of well-timed laconic humour. The cast bring these characters to life in a manner that is both strikingly colourful and solidly grounded in reality.  

Jasmine Garcia has ferocious spitfire charisma to spare as Carmen, the student whose drive for success overrides any instinct for self-preservation. Josh Angeles brings a compellingly unpredictable mix of cocksure petulance and wounded vulnerability to the role of Tyrone, a dynamic hip-hop dancer who struggles academically and whose past experience of racism has left him with a bit of a chip on his shoulder. His romance with Taylor Coad’s sweet-but-determined working class ballerina, Iris, produces some of the show’s most poignant moments, owing to the warm chemistry between the two actors.

The more studied performances of Mitchell Smith and Lucy Carey as determined thespians Nick and Serena, serve to cleverly deconstruct showbiz stereotypes  - whereas Georgia Broomhall’s overweight dancer Mabel and Aled Proeve’s brashly egotistic wannabe comedian, Joe both deliver scene stealing turns of comic relief. Anna Rudieger (as sarcastic drummer, Grace) Luke Mitchell (as  shy trumpeter, Goodman)  and Mark Stefanoff (as sensitive violinist, Schlomo) each get a chance to perform virtuoso displays of musicianship on stage.

Brian Godfrey, Ben Todd, Lisa Simonetti and Ashleigh Tarling all have a nice line in deadpan snark as the teachers, and though their musical talents aren’t given as much opportunity to shine, they make the most of their rare moments in the spotlight.

The cast’s triple-threat passion combined with Vanessa Redmond and Ali Walsh’s choreography bring out the best in the show’s standout songs, and help carry the weaker numbers. Though Steve Margoshe’s songs are consistently pleasant, some lack a strong hook, and though Jacques Levy’s lyrics are mostly adequate, there is the occasional clunker and overall, none of the songs written specifically for the stage version have quite the same anthemic power as the movie’s title tune by Dean Pitchford and Michael Gore (which also makes an appearance here).

Some first night jitters were in evidence. There were a handful of occassions when the microphones malfunctioned, resulting in the singers being drowned out by the background music or the audience being assaulted with feedback noise. The cast soldiered on gamely in the face of these technical difficulties, but there were several instances where the sound levels threw off the cast and lines were flubbed. Hopefully, Marie Clark will have got on top of this once the show begins its run proper, because this is otherwise an immaculately crafted production sure to delight Fame fans.

Benjamin Orchard

Images: Mark Anolak Photography