John Frost, Karl Sydow, Martin McCallum and Joye Entertainment in association with Lionsgate and Magic Hour Productions. 4 Oct 2015
The buzz in the foyer before the sell-out performance I attended was incredible. Some, like me, missed the 1987 hit film starring Patrick Swayze (tragically dead at age 57 by pancreatic cancer) and Jennifer Grey, or the world premiere stage production in Australia in 2004, and were there because of the huge reputation of this work. The low budget, independently produced movie had no major stars (no, Patrick was not yet a star) but grossed skyward of $200 million. It was the first film to sell more than a million home copies; the hit song, (I've Had) The Time of My Life, and the soundtrack won Grammy, Academy and Golden Globe awards. All this started with the boy-meets-girl story that writer Eleanor Bergstein could not sell.
The action takes place in the summer of 1963 in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York. Wealthy Manhattanites would retreat to woodsy resorts - like the Kellerman's as presented in the show - where the management organise skittles, talents contests and most pertinently, dance lessons for families. While it all seems a bit corny now, and the resorts lost their popularity in the 1980s, this sort of action has shifted to the cruise ships, as well as all the hanky-panky between the male staff and wide-eyed teenagers or bored housewives.
Basically, a nice girl in her gap summer falls in love with the dance instructor and has the time of her life. Some of the dramatic elements were later borrowed by Baz Luhrmann and his co-writers for the 1992 film, Strictly Ballroom. Due to partner problems, the top dog dancer reluctantly teaches a novice for a big number under the duress of a deadline. Baz even replicated the emphasis on Spanish rhythms and how to learn them - "leesin to yur 'art."
The design team created a filmic background for the stage production with motion imagery of lake water, rain, and scenic hills. Plantation shutters dropped periodically to help transit scene changes. The ambience of a high quality, old-school resort was there, meeting Bergstein's objective of placing you into the three dimensional present, as opposed to film's sense of two dimensional memory, as she put it.
The dancing is unbelievably good - exciting, visceral and sexy - the dirty dancing of the title. Maddie Peat and Kurt Phelan playing the top instructors at Kellerman's opened the dance numbers in an awesome display of virtuosity. The chorus choreography is highly individualised. It is in the relationship between Kirby Burgess's Baby Houseman and Phelan's Johnny Castle that Strictly Ballroom meets Grease (1978), for here we have a Sandy Olsson type falling for a Johnny Zuko type. The audience cheered for their success in seduction and choreography. And weren't those the biggest melons you have ever seen?
While a lot of the music was sixties soundtrack, James D Smith - who as Billy Kostecki introduced Baby to the debauchery of the staff quarters - sang In The Still of The Night with the clarity of a Herkimer diamond, and shone with Anna Freeland in the inspirational theme song of the finale. Unfortunately, director James Powell kept them in theatrical twilight in opposite corners of front stage, as this is a dance show after all. The other original songs are also left to the ensemble as the leads do not actually sing. Fans of the early sixties will enjoy all the contextual information - the Mississippi bus protest, Kennedy's Peace Corps and the liberal idealism that that president fostered - but also parental conservatism and illegal abortion, new stuff in addition to the romantic narrative of the film, I am told.
There was a standing ovation when I attended. Dirty Dancing is a terrific night out, sticking to the winning formulae of the film, and fulfilling a wish to re-engage with this love story by the immediacy of a stage performance.
David Grybowski
When: 4 October to 1 November
Where: Festival Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au
