REVIEW: Ruva Ngwenya Delivers A Tremendous Performance in TINA, THE TINA TURNER MUSICAL

Thursday 18th May 2023, 7pm, Theatre Royal Sydney

Phyllida Lloyd's (Director)' Laurence Olivier Award Nominated and Tony Award Nominated TINA, THE Tina Turner MUSICAL, which premiered in London in 2019, has been bought to Sydney with Australian born Ruva Ngwenya stepping into the iconic short skirts and high hair to deliver a breathtaking performance. Filled with heart and honesty, Katori Hall, Frank Ketelaar and Kees Prins (Book) have worked with Tina Turner to deliver a story that celebrates the now 83-year-old multi-award-winning performer while ensuring the truth of the adversity she overcame are not ignored, ensuring this work is so much mor than another jukebox musical.

TINA, THE Tina Turner MUSICAL takes the audience back to Tina's childhood, when she still went by her birth name, Anna Mae Bullock, and expressed herself through song at the local Baptist church in Nutbush Tennessee where her violent and abusive father Flloyd Richard Bullock (Augie Tchantcho) was a pastor and overseer of the cotton-pickers. It tracks significant moments in Anna Mae's life, from her mother Zelma (Ibinabo Jack) abandoning her at the age of 11 to her maternal grandmother Georgeanna (Deni Gordon) eventually sending her back to live with Zelma and her older sister Alline (Jayme-Lee Hanekom) where she eventually meets Ike Turner (Tim Omaji), the lead singer of Kings of Rhythm, the band at the club Alline takes her to. Supported by carefully selected songs from Tina Turner's career, the rollercoaster of her career path, from Ike insisting she change her name from Anna Mae to Tina, to having success with Ike in the Ike and Tina Turner Revue, dealing with the abuse from the unfaithful and drug dependent Ike, and catching the attention of big name record producers, is presented with an honesty that one may not expect from as biographical work of a living performer.

Set and costume designer Mark Thompson keeps the set relatively simple with the addition of a rear screen and the ability to portals to reduce the performance space or imply infinite depth. The screen adds context to the stories, from the skies and cotton fields of Tennessee, to a scrolling timeline of the relentless schedule of cities that Tina performed while still with Ike, and her time in London when Roger Davies (Mat Verevis) had booked her 3 weeks recording time at Abbey Road in an effort to produce a record that would convince Capitol Records to support her comeback and sign her. More traditional set pieces are used for more domestic scenes while the stage can also be transformed to the studio and concert stages with Bruno Poet's lighting design reaching beyond the confines of the stage with lines of lights featured around and above the proscenium.

Thompson's costumes capture the essence of the decades through which Tina's story travels while recreating Tina Turner's iconic outfits with short skirts that allowed her long legs to "be free". In numbers where Tina fronts an ensemble, Thompson ensures that she stands out while ensuring she remains connected to the story, from the 1950's wiggle dress that she dons to go to out with Alline when the rest of the girls are in the full skirts of a similar fabric and tone, to the deeper tone of beading on the bodice of the dress she wears when leading the Ikettes in Proud Mary. The costumes are enhanced by Campbell Young Associates extensive wigs that take Tina from the tight curls of her teens to sleek tresses of the 70's and the iconic punk mane that came with her return to the spotlight and rise to fame as a solo artist and queen of rock and roll.

Ruva Ngwenya is a fabulous force that is perfect as Tina Turner. The Australian performer with Zimbabwean heritage has a powerhouse voice that recreates the famous songs with accuracy while ensuring that when they are included to serve the story, they are infused with the new meaning and connection as she connects the lyrics to the narrative. Additionally, Ngwenya not only has the voice for the role and the dramatic range, but she also has the moves as she recreates Tina Turner's iconic performances that include lots of dancing.

Book writers Katori Hall, Frank Ketelaar and Kees Prins have ensured that the audience understands that this work is much more than just a tribute to Tina Turner's music but also an opportunity to raise awareness of the social and cultural challenges that she had to face, from her violent father Floyd and husband Ike, a mother that blamed her for forcing her to stay in an abusive relationship as long as she did, and an industry that saw her as too old. She rose above the stereotype that young Black women would only ever achieve lives filled with menial work, but she was faced with the challenge of Ike also being prejudiced against any involvement with white producers, not really wanting to try reaching a white audience until Phil Spector (John O'Hara) wanted to give Tina's voice his Wall Of Sound treatment with River Deep Mountain High. As she tried to rebuild her career, even though she was already a known entity, she still received outdated prejudice from record executives though, thankfully, she did have a few people willing to keep pushing for her success, particularly new manager, Australian Roger Davies (Mat Verevis) who was able to provide more opportunities than former manager and ongoing assistant Rhonda Graam. Hall, Ketelaar and Prins have also included more personal evolutions, from Tina's spirituality, from her acknowledgement of voodoo omens despite her Baptist origins to her Buddhist beliefs that included meditative chants, to her realization that an 16 year age gap shouldn't stop her from being with a man that truly wanted to support her, her eventual husband Erwin Bach (Matthew Prime)

Supported by an 11-piece band that is predominantly unseen but featured in the final number, TINA, THE Tina Turner MUSICAL is filled with powerful music that spans the range of emotions. Led by Ngwenya, the cast is consistently solid and the young performers on opening night, Aimee Bah as Young Anna-Mae, Khanyisa Tsakanov as Young Alline, and Hendrix Marsden as Young Craig were delightful with particular note to Bah's performance in Nutbush City Limits.

TINA, THE Tina Turner MUSICAL is a must-see production. Regardless of how familiar you may be with Tina Turner's music, this work combines an interesting biography that holds powerful and important messages with captivating recreations and interpretations of iconic songs. Ruva Ngwenya is a fabulous performer that is definitely one to watch out for in the future. It is wonderful to see the story properly presented, serving a s a reminder that we do have a diverse musical theatre community in Australia and New Zealand with at least 70% of the cast from the region with the remainder generally coming from the United Kingdom, and 57% of the Australian and New Zealand cast identifying as PoC.

www.tinathemusical.com.au

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