Queensland Theatre revival sparkles with serious vocal chops
SAPPHIRES ★★★½
Bille Brown Theatre, until May 24
Soul brothers return with the return of one of Australian theatre’s true success stories. With its impressive new design and a new generation of actors with serious vocal talents, Sapphires shining brightly as ever.
Playwright-actor Tony Briggs had two sources of inspiration when writing the play, It premiered at the Melbourne Theater Company in 2004. First, he aimed to write something fun, positive, and entertaining by starring in a worthwhile but depressing show about the Indigenous experience.
Second, she wanted to celebrate the stories of her mother, Laurel Robinson, who toured Vietnam in 1969 as part of an Aboriginal girl group performing for US soldiers.
In Briggs’s fictionalized version, the four McCrae sisters are Yorta Yorta women who enter a Melbourne talent show with their Supremes-style vocal display and are discovered by Dave Lovelace (Jack Bannister), a self-important svengali.
Gail (Taeg Twist), the self-appointed leader of the group; wild child Cynthia (Ruby Henaway); brooding Kay (Aurora Liddle-Christie); and Julie (Tehya Makani), the baby of the group.
The girls are taken to Vietnam, just like in fairy tales; There are concerts, romantic relationships, and a few harsh truths. They also befriend Joe (Chris Nguyen), a Vietnamese teenager.
Queensland Theatre’s revived production brings back the show’s original director, Brisbane-raised Wesley Enoch, and original designer Richard Roberts.
Roberts dressed the stars in a dazzling wardrobe of miniskirts, knee-high boots and the like, and worked with video designer Craig Wilkinson to add stylish black-and-white period footage to various scenes.
The four principals, all making their Queensland Theater debut, prove comically adept as their brotherly antics and rivalries continue. They’re all great singers, but Twist is the one who sings and doesn’t suffer fools. Chain of Fools it emerges as a standout with an earth-shattering growl.
Sapphires His stars are on solid ground as they split with his comments. No Mountain Is High Enough or My boyfriend is backSlyly choreographed by Yolande Brown and backed by a lethal four-piece stage troupe.
But while the passing decades have added technical polish to the series, there’s no hiding how dramatically light Briggs’s script remains.
If you’ve seen Wayne Blair’s film adaptation, starring Jessica Mauboy and Deborah Mailman, where Briggs and others work hard to impose a thoughtful narrative, you may be surprised by the looseness of the story here.
The idea that Aboriginal women are treated better in war zones, where taxi doors are not kept open to them in their own countries, is mentioned, but is not examined in great depth. Leave aside the moral complexity of Australia’s involvement in the conflict the Vietnamese called the American War.
Briggs’ aunt, one of the real-life Sapphires, is Dr. The production is poignant given the recent passing of Naomi Mayers OAM. You wonder what really happened and wish you could ask him.
As it is, Sapphires are best enjoyed on a musical revue level and are the songs that speak the most meaningfully: i.e. People Make the World a Better Placeand best of all, the Otis Redding/Aretha Franklin classic that booked the show, Respect.
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Nick Dent is a Culture Reporter for the Brisbane Times covering the arts and things to do in the city.Connect via email.
