Photo: Theatrepress
Well, that was big and certainly spectacular. For a first time theatre experience (in the big league at least), it doesn’t get much better than that. The show was fun, entertaining, dramatic and to say the least; extravagant. One thing is for sure though, it definitely wasn’t traditional theatre.
Contemporary is the best word to describe it, and it took off with some great establishment of scene, 1930’s New York, packed full of cabaret dancers as well as references to the monumental construction of the Golden Gate bridge that was occurring as the original 1933 film version of King Kong was released.
As far as the technical competencies of the performers go, I couldn’t critique them as I have no experience with theatre. From the perspective of an amateur theatre goer, the performances were brilliant. Humorous at times, entertaining and quite outlandish (perhaps even risqué).
The review from The Age was right, there was a lot of tits and ass. Does it detract from the show? No. I think it captures the spirit of 1930’s America wonderfully. There were a lot of raunchy dances and revealing (yet glamorous) outfits, but not once did I hear the audience cry in disgust at the “exploitation of women”. All that came from the crowd were cheers and laughter.
A final point I’d like to touch on is the innovative and creative use of lighting and textures. Once we set sail to Skull island, not a single backdrop or conventional set piece was used. Everything was constructed using plastics, reflective surfaces, or even purely represented by light. It really created a sense of the unknown, conveying a sense of darkness and mystery that a traditional forest backdrop simply would not.
Through the whole show I only had two complaints. One, a petty complaint, was that there were no physical airplanes for Kong to strike down. In one of my favourite scenes from the Kong films, the US fighter planes circle the Empire State Building to try and dislodge Kong. It was a shame to not see this happen (they used light to represent the planes instead), but in all respects, it would’ve been very difficult to pull off.
The second issue was to do with the sound mix, at times the words of the songs were difficult to make out, but I guess that’s the pay off of having such a flamboyant and magnificent soundtrack.
In conclusion it was a great night out and well worth the price of admission.
King Kong is still playing at the Regent Theatre in Melbourne for a limited season. Tickets are available from Ticketmaster.
