AustLit

'Investing money in musicals is risky business, but the caravan king behind a new tour of the stage musical Muriel's Wedding isn't just out to make cash.'  (Article summary)

'Muriel's Wedding The Musical scored big in Sunday night's Helpmann Awards ceremony "Act 1" at Sydney's Capitol Theatre — the first of two ceremonies, and the first time Live Performance Australia has split its annual awards event.'  (Introduction)

'On Monday night I attended a performance of the Australian Ballet’s The Sleeping Beauty where the audience gasped in wonder as the curtains parted on the final act: three massive chandeliers were lit then raised above a cream and gold confection of a set which put Versailles to shame. On Thursday night, I was at Muriel’s Wedding: The Musical where the sets and costumes are bright and garish, adding a satiric commentary of their own to the show’s cheerfully vulgar view of contemporary Australia. Gabriela Tylesova designed the sets and costumes for both productions – from Aurora’s wedding to Muriel’s wedding – with equal flair. The talent has gathered around Muriel’s Wedding.'  (Introduction)

'In the all-singing, all-dancing stage musical update, this narrative and its implicit social commentary is almost unrecognisable. Gone is the bolshy ending; instead, a character who barely had four minutes of air time in the film – Brice, literally the first person Muriel kissed – returns to declare his love and drive both her and Rhonda to “happily ever after” on a bicycle trailer. While in the film, Muriel walked away from her faux-relationship with the hunky visa-chasing South African swimmer David after their first copulation; in the musical, her husband is a closeted Russian who realises the truth about his sexuality only after sleeping with Muriel. Crucially, where Muriel desperately sought marriage as proof of being “somebody”, she now not only desires marriage but, as importantly, Insta-fame. In conflating such disparate desires, Hogan not only identifies himself as belonging to the techno-panic generation, he also calls into question the very thing that endeared feminists to the film: its criticism of marriage as the pinnacle of female achievement.' (Introduction)