You say Mukinupin, I say mucking it up

I have no idea (and what's new you say?) what to expect of The Man From Mukinupin when we arrived at The Belvoir last evening, although I recall when I first sighted the promotional flyer for the play I did wondered briefly why a lady and not a man was featured. Okay she did look a little camp so it could be a play with a gender twist . . . . ????

As it turned out, it is a "musical comedy and wheatbelt Shakespeare rolled into one, bursting with sunlight and song, revelling in darkness, peopled with a rabble of broken-down vaudevillians, lingerie salesmen and war heroes." 

Those were Belvoir's words, not mine. 

It went on to gush, "The Man from Mukinupin is one of Australia’s great theatrical creations from one of our great poets and ratbags, Dorothy Hewett. In dusty Mukinupin, Jack Tuesday loves Polly Perkins and Polly loves Jack. But when night comes it’s Touch Of The Tar who tickles Jack’s drunken fancy. Through this double-Mukinupin, by day and night, Hewett gives us a twin vision of black and white Australia clinging together for all we’re worth." 

Well, I never!

No prize for guessing but I failed to catch the genocidal drift of the play, if you know what I mean. Okay, I got the bit about the ying-yang and ding-dong of the characters but those characteristic flaws are universal, not culturally specific. I will bet even in a mono-cultural environment, we will still find a divide IF WE LOOK FOR IT.  

Arriving at the theatre after having been caught in a rainstorm did not place me in a conducive mood to receive the play, so I hunted for flaws, naturally.

First of all, the singing is a bit iffy. There were brilliant bits but these are unfortunately far and few in between. Half the time I couldn't quite "catch" the lyrics and hence have no bloody idea what the singing was all about. For a musical, this flaw is quite devastating because I keep having flashes of what-the-hell-happened-at-auditions. And I couldn't resist commenting to my fellow play attendee whose only crime was sitting next to me, "Shouldn't Susan Boyle be singing as Polly Perkins?" I think it came across clearly this is an ensemble of actors singing, not singers acting.

Speaking of acting, which I found to be mostly rather over-dramatic, the best (acting) actually came from, the "play within the play". The scene of a camp Othello taking out a very funny tragedianne Desdemona is hilarious and offered a much needed comic respite from a cast whose main preoccupation seems to be an over-zealous quest for dramatic effect, rather than a genuine interest in each other's role.

There were however some redeemable qualities.

The indomitable Mercy Montebello (played by the indomitable Amanda Muggleton), the horn-toting Edie Perkins (played by Kerry Walker) and the flasher's (played by David Page) derriere help lifted up some of the moments. Even the well-timed violent parts were realistic and drew shocked gasps from some part of the audience. Yours truly included. 

The stage setting is quite creative given the tiny amount of space and although I didn't quite grasp the significance of the sliding coffee(?) stained curtain, I thought the stage was efficiently utilised, enabling the actors playing multiple roles to change in and out of their costumes and leave and enter the stage smoothly. I particularly appreciated the humor of "turning off the phone" at the beginning of the play.

In all, let me just say The Man From Mukinupin is not a bad outing for a Saturday night but if I knew I would be caught out in the rain, I would have stayed home instead.