The Little Mermaid

THERE WAS a little bit of undersea magic at the Townsville Civic Theatre last night for the (long-awaited) opening of this production of The Little Mermaid, which has been in the pipeline for some time.

This was a bright and lively production which sparkled in many places. It was carried by an enthusiastic cast, appropriately eccentric performances, colourful and imaginative costuming (the illusion of the movement underwater was very clever) and an outstanding orchestra.

Based on the 1989 Disney animated classic musical re-telling of the Hans Christian Anderson fairytale about the mermaid who has dreamt of becoming a human and falls in love with a human prince, it was a huge hit more than 30 years ago and received a moderately successful Broadway treatment in 2007.

It is difficult to transform something like this to the stage and clearly adaptations have to be made when transferring from screen to stage and it is perhaps not the greatest written musical in the world. But where this production shines is in its faithfulness to the film, particularly in what was essentially bringing a cartoon to life, a challenge faced squarely by the co-directors, D’Arcy Mullamphy and Andrew Higgins, in their eighth musical together as directors.

They gave their actors free licence to exaggerate, and the actors made the most of it – I suspect that the larger-than-life characters will assume – perfectly appropriately - even larger proportions before the run is over. It also gave the set design some challenges, and the underwater sequences which featured visually impressive flywork which drew spontaneous applause.

Central to the entire core of this production is the “Disney princess”, and in the title role Madison Tomarchio captured the essence of everything that is expected from this archetype. Her vocals were outstanding, and while I was a tad puzzled at first about the use of the American accent, I soon became accustomed to it and saw it as a correct directorial choice. She embodied every little girl’s dream of what it is to be a Disney princess.

Brady Cronin was a suitably handsome Prince Eric, but for the most part the acting gongs went to the myriad of cartoon characters that inhabited the action.

In customary fashion, Sandra Neal commanded the stage in her scene-stealing role as Ursula the Sea-Witch (who also happens to be a black octopus). She relished every minute of her time on stage and navigating the incredible costume was a feat on its own! Her rendition of Poor Unfortunate Souls was a highlight.

Another scene-stealer of course was Jeremiah Pau as Sebastian the crab. As in the original, it is played with a Caribbean accent and he clearly enjoyed every minute of it. I daresay this role in particular will grow and become more and more outrageous as the season progresses, as will Adrian Corbett (as the seagull Scuttle); Luke Reynolds (a delight as Chef Louis); the pair of electric eels Flotsam and Jetsam (Courtney Dibben and David Lequerica), and Glenn McCarthy’s eccentrically foppish Grimsby.

Young Levi Bell, who made such an impression in last year’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, once again demonstrated a stage presence beyond his years as Flounder. His number (She’s in Love)with the six-part Mer-Sisters (with their close Andrews Sisters-like harmonies) was a vocal highlight.

Of particular note was the outstanding orchestra under the direction of Rianta Belford which gave the singular impression of being much larger than the 21-piece orchestra actually was. They performed the lush Disney-esque orchestrations with great expertise and nary a foot wrong.

Musical theatre in our community has come such a long way in the last 20 years or so. Today, in order to acquire copyright to perform a non-professional contemporary work requires many hoops for community companies to leap through. In fact, most people would not be aware that to acquire the rights to many of these contemporary productions, non-professional companies are obligated to deliver a production which shows no discernible physical difference between that and its professionally-produced counterpart. This puts enormous constraints – financial, artistic and construction - on small community companies, but it what it has done is significantly lift the standard.  Would that everyone in the community unites in the central vision to assist these companies in every way so that they continue to produce that special theatrical magic.

But the magic in this production is not so much in gauging responses from an adult critic - one simply has to look into the audience. The enraptured faces of the little girls drinking in every moment in the audience made it worth every minute. One little six-year-old mite next to me was enthralled with every minute – and it was her first visit to the theatre. After all, this is what this show is all about – family magic.

Trevor Keeling

Photographer: Sonia Worrell.