Mother, Wife and The Complicated Life

Not all musicals have to be extravaganzas, or blow your socks off with show-stopping numbers. If you’re lucky, you find musicals that are funny and endearing and speak to you on a personal level. This is one of those musicals. Ideally pitched for a girls’ night out, women will (and do) adore it; but there are enough genuine laughs and humorous full cast songs to please even the most blokey of blokes. Add to that a terrific cast of four females with great voices (especially impressive when blended in four part harmonies) and it’s easy to see why this little show has been making its presence felt in places as diverse as New York and Norway as well as here at home.

Amity Dry is extremely clever in not only writing music (some with Mark Ferguson) and lyrics, but in crafting a book which is largely vignette based and reminiscent of the revue styles of Nunsense and Menopause the Musical. The slim story  encapsulates the different stages of marriage and motherhood through the eyes of four close friends. However, the thing that sets M,W, and the CL apart is a genuine sense of poignancy and empathy for the subject. Dry herself is a mother and wife…and her life certainly seems complicated. Loving care has been taken crafting emotional ballads such as “The Day I was Chosen” which new Mum Kate (Amity Dry) sings to her newborn baby (Dry actually wrote it for her own first-born child), and a moving ballad sung by Lily (Susan Ferguson ) on the breakdown of her marriage. In stark contrast is the hilarious and rock flavoured “Bridezilla”, and the witty comparison between newly married sex, and old married couple sex in the hysterical “Baby Come to Bed”.

Nikki Aitken has the strongest role as Bec, a little overweight and very underwhelmed by the three kids that run her off her feet. She’s a fine performer and her Bluesy “I’m a Mum” is a real showstopper. Amity Dry is Kate…the young business-woman who has her future planned until an unwanted pregnancy knocks her off course. She’s a warm and endearing presence on stage, and very generous in her performance. Rachel McCall is commanding, full on and suitably grating in the least sympathetic character of Jessie….desperate to get married just for the sake of it, obsessive about the wedding, and then stunned when reality sets in. Her “I Don’t Care” is a potential anthem for every woman sick of hearing about her girlfriend’s kids and marital problems. The character of Lily, who owns the coffee shop where they all congregated as singles, is a little under-developed, but Susan Ferguson does a beautiful balancing act and is touching in her final scenes.

David Lampard has not only done a fine job in directing the piece, but also designed the very clever set with its multiple configurations, and, as a bonus, he is also responsible for the choreography/movement, which is stylish, classy, and extremely well executed. Mark Ferguson’s arrangements for the live band are just terrific, and the overall pop style, with just a hint of Broadway, of the score is spot on throughout. The show has been touring now for going on 4 years. The cast know each other so well that the idea of their staunch friendship is completely credible. It’s that warmth between them that carries the audience along with them on the journey.

Mother, Wife and the Complicated Life is only in Melbourne for this week before embarking on a National tour. It’s a genuinely warm and witty show and great entertainment value. And how wonderful to be able to say that it’s entirely Australian.

Coral Drouyn