Ladies in Black

Ian Mackellar’s production of Ladies in Black is one helluva slick production. I absolutely adored the sets, the motion, the colour and the effortless ease of transitions. The whole evening appeared as a smooth and natural glide. The 1950s never looked better (in fact, this is the second show in a row that Noosa has produced that has a 1950’s theme).

So, if you like a show that is layered (but not too deeply), that has a simple plot, with "softish" feminist overtones, a bit of an historic snapshot, that is taffeta soaked, satin and lace trimmed, that’s off the shoulder, that’s a 1950s frock-fest, then you are going to L.O.V.E “Ladies in Black”.

 As I said – a very slick production. As an actual musical it was not quite my line of country but when I saw it on the preview night I was definitely in the minority with this opinion.

'Tis the simple coming of age tale of Lisa (Sienna MacRitchie) who, after finishing school, skips down the yellow brick road to work at Goodes – the swankiest of all swanky department stores in Sydney. Her simple dream is to get some work experience before defying her father and going to Uni. Suddenly she is no longer in the Kansas of her meat and three veg, white bread suburban life. Her new friends at work, Patty and Fay (Susie Bushnell and Bridie Delanie) portray the yin / yang of relationships, (Patty is “stuck” with her man, Fay is looking for her man). Meanwhile the “Bohemian” Magda (Nicole Ennis) opens Lisa up to a new world of culture, philosophy, art  … in fact everything Lisa has yearned for.

Hats off to the design team, technical department and stage crew. Very much the stars of this show. The scenes looked so rich and the depth of colour was amazing. From the opening to the finale, it flowed “effortlessly”.

And great to see yet another good working ensemble. This ensemble of 15 were well drilled and trained by Ian MacKellar. They could flood the stage with sound and movement when needed or vacate the stage for more individual moments. It was the proverbial “duck” analogy. Graceful above the water, frantic underneath. I would have loved to have seen the controlled chaos backstage. Yet onstage it seemed smooth and natural. On top of that many of them played a multitude of characters. The standard of a production is never dictated by your most talented performers – it’s dictated by your weakest links. There were no obvious weak links.

However, there were leads within the ensemble (the script and plot demanded that). These were the aforementioned Lisa, Fay, Patty and Magda. They were all uniformly strong. Lisa (Sienna MacRitchie) caught the wide-eyed innocence needed for her journey, Patty (Susie Bushnell) tugged enough heart strings with her “relationship” dilemma to keep it real, Magda (Nicole Ennis) nailed her role as the influencer (and not the cheap sort of influencers we are festooned with today). And finally, Fay (Bridie Delaney) – as the woman willing to wait. I have to admit her rendition of “I Just Kissed a Continental” was my favourite song in the entire production and a wonderful calling card by Bridie Delaney to introduce herself to Sunshine Coast audiences.

Other stand out songs for me were “The Bastard Song” by Mrs Crown, Joy and Fay (Nan Cameron, Nicola Wilson and Susie Bushnell), "The Party" (Magda and Everyone) and “Pandemonium” by – well, everyone!

However - the true superstar of the show is Magaret Courtney. Her on-stage performance as Mrs Jacobs was highly commendable but she was also in charge of costumes for the show. This was an absolute epic. If you laid all the costumes out end to end they’d probably circumnavigate the world …  a couple of times. They just kept coming and coming and coming  … 

So? In short. Ladies in Black is a fun-filled journey of colour, music and theatre with enough of something for everyone. A tight and entertaining production. 

Simon Denver

Photographer: Christina MacRitchie.