Reviewed by Barry Lenny, Saturday 9th January 2016
Ghost The Musical is adapted from the 1990 film, Ghost, starring Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, and Whoopi Goldberg. It had its premiere in Manchester in 2011, before moving to the West End in the same year. Five years later it is finally in Australia, with its premiere last night in Adelaide at the start of its national tour. The book and lyrics by Bruce Joel Rubin and music and lyrics are by Dave Stewart and Glen Ballard.
Presented by Ambassador Theatre Group Asia Pacific, GWB Entertainment, Red Live and Adelaide Festival Centre in association with Colin Ingram, Hello Entertainment and Paramount Pictures, the Australian production stars Jemma Rix as Molly Jensen, Rob Mills as Sam Wheat, and Wendy Mae Brown as Oda Mae Brown and is running throughout January in the Adelaide Festival Theatre.
Sam, a banker, and Molly, and artist, are on their way home to their new loft residence in New York when an armed man appears and demands Sam's wallet. Sam opens it and offers the cash, but the criminal insists on the wallet as well and, in the struggle, he shoots and kills Sam, who discovers that he is still there, but as a ghost, unseen and unheard by anybody but other ghosts. He finds his way to Oda Mae Brown, who claims to be a psychic but is simply a fake, trading on the gullibility of the bereaved. Sam is angry that his hopes of her being a real medium who can help him causes him to voice that anger and, to both his and Oda Mae's surprise, she hears his voice. After a lifetime of pretence it seems that she has finally inherited the gift that was had by her mother and grandmother.
Sam discovers the address of his killer, but then further discovers that the person he thought was his friend, co-worker Carl Bruner, had hired the man, Willie Lopez, to steal the wallet. Sam, Oda Mae, and the finally convinced Molly, set out to bring Carl to justice. Sam has, by now, learned to move objects, thanks to the tuition from a ghost who rides on a subway train, and this enables him to save Molly and Oda Mae from Carl's gun. With Carl and Lopez dead and gone to the other place, Sam can now move on heaven.
The song, Unchained Melody, turns up during the performance, with the programme attributing its fame to The Righteous Brothers. In fact, they were not even born when it was written and offered to Bing Crosby in 1935. He turned it down and it resurfaced as the theme for the film Unchained in 1955, hence its title that seems to bear no relationship to the lyrics about a man missing a woman. It was nominated for an Oscar. The Righteous Brothers had a hit with it in 1965, even though it was actually the B side of the record. Before them, though, it had been a hit for Les Baxter and his band, Al Hibbler, Jimmy Young, and Roy Hamilton. Now, here it is getting another new lease on life in this musical.
Jemma Rix as Molly and Rob Mills as Sam are an ideal duo and both bring a wide range of experience to their roles, not only in musical theatre. Rix spent a very long time in green makeup playing Elphaba in Wicked and Mills recently toured his cabaret show, Rob Mills is Surprisingly Good. They have performed together before and that explains the easy rapport that they share as these two people who are very much in love, in spite of Sam's difficulty in putting it into words.
Jemma Rix brings tears to the eyes of many in the audience with the sensational authenticity of her emotions as Molly. From the very beginning she convinces us that Molly is deeply in love with Sam, and powerfully displays the trauma of her sudden loss. That Rob Mills is good, as his cabaret show told us, is not really that surprising but, in this case, he is at his very best to date, totally absorbed into the character of Sam and singing with conviction. His marvellous performance beautifully complements that of Rix. When the two are together, though, that is when the sparks really start to fly.
As the psycho psychic, more half-baked than medium, Wendy Mae Brown presents us with a character far larger than life and steals every scene in which she appears. Her hilarious antics as Oda Mae Brown brought her massive applause at the end of the performance, and standing ovations were given for everybody.
Alex Rathgeber gives us a very devious, but most charming and disarming Carl Bruner, and Ross Chisari's Willie Lopez is a thoroughly nasty piece of work. David Denis is commanding as the subway ghost, with huge stage presence.
Director, Matthew Warchus, Video and Projection Designer, Jon Driscoll, Sound Designer, Bobby Aitken, Lighting Designer, Hugh Vanstone, Choreographer, Ashley Wallen, and Illusionist, Paul Kieve, have all made huge contributions to the production. The huge screens, video, and special effects are vital to the production, and Sam walking through a closed door and the scenes in the subway are quite remarkable. The passing through the closed door, I suspect, is based on a very old illusion known as Pepper's Ghost.
The visual tricks are essential to the production as, without them, the production is really just a string of light pop songs that hardly send one out whistling them. The story and the extremely fine performances are what give the work its greatest strength, along with excellent accompaniment by the tightly cohesive orchestra, containing some of Adelaide's top young musicians.
Whether you are a firm believer or, alternatively, you think of ghosts, heaven, and hell as nothing but delusional fantasies, it must be remembered that this is a work of fiction and needs to be taken as that. It is really a love story at its heart, combined with a murder mystery and a tale of retribution, and the superb performances by the two leads are more than able to carry that core love story concept.
You only have until 31st January to catch this major production. See the trailer for the London production below.
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