Tivoli Lovely – A Review

Written by Eddie Perfect
Directed by Dean Bryant
Music Direction by Zara Stanton
Performed by Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) 2nd and 3rd Year Music Theatre and Music students

State Theatre Centre, Heath Ledger Theatre, until November 14

Barry Healy reviews

The executive summary of this review is simple: Run, don’t walk to see Tivoli Lovely at the State Theatre Centre in Perth before its season expires on 14 November. It is every bit as good as any musical theatre extravaganza you would expect to see on Broadway or London’s West End.

WAAPA really has done its students proud in developing this project and the students from the graduating Music Theatre class have risen to the challenge. There are some 40 performers on stage and around another 20 in the orchestra pit, so this is music theatre on a grand scale. On opening night, the packed audience roared with laughter and warmly applauded every show-stopper song that the singers belted out.

The romantic/comedy plot is of a murder conspiracy within the life of a travelling Tivoli Theatre troupe in the golden era of Australian music hall theatre just before the genre was eclipsed by television sweeping into the cultural landscape. The simple skeleton of the story supports a lot of singing, dancing and humour.

The project has been a long time in development, being workshopped over three years at WAAPA by its internationally acclaimed director Dean Bryant, using the script from playwright Eddie Perfect, also a WAAPA graduate. In the show’s program Bryant speaks of “working with the same cohort of students from their first tap-shuffles” to now seeing them enter into professional show business. “It’s been a remarkable experience watching both the students and the musical grow across such a long time,” he says.

The students learned their craft in the process and the final product shines. It is an outstanding example of action learning or experiential education, where a group tackles a real project. It is an educational approach where students are actively engaged rather than passively receiving information.

The performers execute their roles with gusto, dynamically singing and dancing with energy and precision, complemented by music from the orchestra pit. There are superb ensemble pieces and some beautiful solos and duos. It is impossible to highlight individuals; all cast members are outstanding.

Musical theatre on this scale is generally prohibitively expensive to stage. Development costs mean the style is restricted to audience centres large enough to justify the budgets. Shows of this scale usually start life on the big stages overseas and make their way to Australia as tours, years after their inception.

Here, with Tivoli Lovely, Perth has a dazzling example of musical theatre, written and developed by Perth talent and worthy of your attention.

Be quick to book, as it finishes this Friday, 14 November.

* By Barry Healy

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