Flowerchildren (Return Season)
By Mark Kearney
If Andrew O’Keefe’s "The Rich List" was still on telly – and thank goodness it isn't! – there is no doubt that one pair of contestants would be asked to name all the jukebox musicals they knew. That’s how ubiquitous this theatrical genre has become recently.
Of course, there’s the big successes: ABBA’s Mamma Mia!, Queen’s We Will Rock You, Frankie Valli’s Jersey Boys. But there’s a whole slew of smaller scale shows which construct their stories around the back catalogue and biographies of famous musicians.
The latest band to have their lives transformed for the stage is The Mamas and the Papas, the 1960s folk rock group most renowned for their harmonic hits Monday Monday and California Dreamin’.
Flowerchildren had its first run at Theatreworks in August 2011, and almost two years later, it’s back, bigger and better than before.
Production company Magnormos have secured the Comedy Theatre for its return season, and the humble set of the original production has transformed into what resembles a multi-level, 1960s recording studio.
Upon its unveiling, Flowerchildren immediately feels like it has grown up since its inaugural presentation.
But it remains a relatively small story, focussing on the internal machinations of the band, particularly the love triangle between three of the band members, songwriter John, tenor Denny and their mutual love interest Michelle (Denny and fourth member Mama Cass were once romantically linked too, but this minor subplot isn’t given much stage time.)
What also struck me very early this time was that Flowerchildren isn’t so much a musical as it is a play with songs. That’s not to say it isn’t terrific – it is. But the moniker ‘musical’ is a little misleading. The music doesn’t really advance the plot; without the music, Flowerchildren would still have Peter Fitzpatrick’s whip-smart script enlivened by four enchanting performers.
Structurally, Flowerchildren is reminiscent of Jersey Boys, with each band member given their own chunk of the show to narrate. This format allows us to sympathise with each character’s motivations, but sometimes distances us from them, too (Mama Cass is our first narrator, but by the end of the show, it has been so long since we heard from her that she starts to feel like a peripheral character.)
Casey Donovan plays Cass Elliot, a fantastically written character who sasses her way throughout the show with a lion’s share of the script’s one-liners. While her acting isn’t as nuanced as her more experienced co-stars, her voice is, quite simply, incomparable. She is one of the great Australian singers of today. Congratulations to Costume (and Set) Designer Christina Logan-Bell for Cass’ colossal collection of caftans, too.
As John and Denny, Matt Hetherington and Dan Humphris are excellently cast. Starting out as friends, they soon compete against one another for Michelle’s affections before eventually conspiring to have her ejected from the group. The two actors navigate these shifts in character well, and sing charmingly throughout.
The best performance comes from Laura Fitzpatrick as Mama Michelle. Short-changed by the script in the show’s debut season, it seems that some work has been done to flesh out the role of Michelle. Now, she feels like the heart and soul of the band, without whom the group begins to flail. Fitzpatrick communicates the character’s cool desirability with an easy-to-watch naturalism.
It really is a team effort, though. The Mamas and the Papas’ music was all about harmony, and the four leads, assisted by a seven-member ensemble, create a wonderful, complex sound when singing together.
Aside from their vocal contribution, the ensemble are a little extraneous; they wave their peace-loving arms about psychedelically in one or two numbers, but they’re an unnecessary distraction from the story.
People will be tempted to lump Flowerchildren in with the rest of jukebox musicals, which are often criticised as being an excuse to hear the original artist’s hits. But Flowerchildren is different. Here, story comes first and the music is its by-product.
The end result is a show with a heart as big as big as Mama Cass’.
