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otherwise there will be severe repercussions with his career and life. In the musical it “becomes a big sort of Russian Stalin era showstopper that has echoes of any kind of Fascist regime. We went quite a long way with that, with Russian dancers in ‘blinged’ out caps and doing Russian goosestepping.” Craig Pearce says audiences are very willing to participate in the heightened theatricality of it as long as the intrinsic storytelling idea is clear. Another example is a number called ‘Heavenly Pineapple’, sung by the character of Tina Sparkles. “She is supposedly dancing a farewell exhibition dance with her partner Nathan Starkey. Within a few bars she is singing to Scott about the power of her pineapple and all the right cherries he can pluck if he comes and dances with her. “It is a tricky reference to Carmen Miranda and that kind of crazy choreography of the 40’s. On one hand we are saying Federation style of dancing does not have a lot of soul to it, but it is very glitzy and attractive on the surface, whereas the dancing of Scott is a lot deeper.” The full name of the song is ‘State Championship – Heavenly Pineapple’ and according to the program it was composed by six people and written by another four. Whatever happened to the days of Rodgers and Hammerstein sitting around a piano and eking out a song?
12 Stage Whispers May - June 2014
Photo: Lightbox Photography
“It was originally a track submitted by Sia Furler. Pop music is very collaborative these days. Someone would have done the top line, someone the bass and maybe a rhythm bed. We then worked out where it would be great in the show. “There is also some traditional songwriting in there (including Eddie Perfect’s songs), written by one or two people around the piano.” The songs in the musical are from many different genres. There is an adaptation of a classic waltz, a re-write of a song from Carmen, a techno song and classic pop such as ‘Time after time’ and ‘Love is in the air’. Craig Pearce says this has a lot of appeal to young people. “The ballroom world is a very eclectic world musically. It is something that intrinsically makes sense in the
world of ballroom dancing and gives an energy to the show that I really like. “There is a real move towards bower birding from different cultures and genres and putting them together to create new ones.” Baz Luhrmann himself is credited with writing the lyrics or co-composing eighteen of the songs. Craig Pearce says that Baz has long been a contributor to the music in his films. It poses the question, how does Baz Luhrmann as the Director of the musical look critically at his own work, as it is unusual for a director of a new musical to also be one of the major writers of the dialogue, lyrics and music. In this case the story is also very close to him as it was inspired by his childhood. “Baz has a history of surrounding himself with talented people who are simpatico with him in terms of communication and working together. It is not like he is a mad megalomaniacal tyrant surrounding himself with yes people. He is very good at creating a creative team that he relies on. “It is a challenge for any person of an auteur nature as he is involved in just about all the aspects of the production. At the end of the day he has the over-riding say, but he is very good at listening to people he is collaborating with.” Many of the critics have not been kind to the musical. Firstly there was consternation within the company when a blogger chose to publish his opinion based on the second preview.