Sean Burnett Dugdale-Martin
Amélie takes place in 1990’s Paris and follows a young woman, underdeveloped in the art of deep, emotional connections with other humans as she learns to love others and to finally let someone else love her. WITCH once again delivers an incredible musical performance and transports us to the West End.
The setting being Paris makes accents unavoidable. However, French accents (not just Parisian accents) are notoriously difficult and the French are stereotypically, but quite accurately, a little judgmental of those trying to impersonate their inflections. This production does suffer from some accents being better than others, every now and then a word can fall through the cracks of a fine enough sentence to jar me. Thinking about it, I wonder if not doing accents would be much, much worse and the answer is yes, it would be. So I appreciate the attempt! No vocal coach is credited and I suppose once the show is well underway you end up accepting this reality's accents and forget to think about it.
Some absolute scene-stealers in the cast: namely William Duignan being a goldfish and a pop star. Both absurd, mythical elements of an over-imaginative young woman desperate to learn about how the world is so much bigger than her parents' kitchen table. Duignan becomes magnetic in these strictly good-times sequences and I can’t help but smile in the closing number to act 1. Rachel McSweeney is wonderful as Amélie and has an incredible voice. McSweeney nails the naivety and curiousness of Amélie, passionately venturing into things unknown and often poignantly reminds us of how stunted the character is emotionally when an opportunity for true connection rears its head. McSweeney offers lightness and depth seamlessly and bounces along as a main character we love and can also see the gaping flaws in.
Amélie (the show) has a bit of a dark sense of humour at times which I appreciate. Amélie (the character) has her goldfish try and kill itself because of her neurotic mother. Amélie (the character, again) is so connection-deprived by her Old War Medic Father that when he checks her pulse it suddenly races because he held her so little. He mistakes this for a heart condition and removes her from school. The cartoonish lightness Amélie (the show, again) takes as it bounces along this little girl's life gives the world a sense of realness, in a strange way. This isn’t a world where everything goes right all the time- most of the characters are miserable, even if it is a romantic version of our world- where most of the characters end up with someone else.
It didn’t remind me of Paris but it did remind me of the romance of Paris. There’s a sense where you can disappear in how big the city is, and whatever part you find and carve out for yourself is unique. It is a place where you feel like you can reinvent yourself, find yourself, build a life, leave a life, figure it all out, or have nothing figured out yet. This production does a good job of bringing that romanticism to life without polishing all the edges. It’s still rough and a little grimy, but you can feel the magic in the air.
WITCH Theatre once again brings a big show to little Wellington and I am thankful that they are dedicating themselves to doing so. Without them we would be all the poorer, having to miss so many large musicals. I’m glad they have found a home at the Hannah Playhouse. At Te Auaha you could see the orchestra but unfortunately Te Auaha has closed its doors. At Circa I don’t remember seeing the orchestra all too plainly (but perhaps that is my memory that’s failing). At The Hannah we can see the musicians up on the balcony and up behind the stage, playing their instruments, being conducted by Hayden Taylor.
More info here on the season that’s on and keep your eye out for the next WITCH production: Ride the Hurricane.
Some absolute scene-stealers in the cast: namely William Duignan being a goldfish and a pop star. Both absurd, mythical elements of an over-imaginative young woman desperate to learn about how the world is so much bigger than her parents' kitchen table. Duignan becomes magnetic in these strictly good-times sequences and I can’t help but smile in the closing number to act 1. Rachel McSweeney is wonderful as Amélie and has an incredible voice. McSweeney nails the naivety and curiousness of Amélie, passionately venturing into things unknown and often poignantly reminds us of how stunted the character is emotionally when an opportunity for true connection rears its head. McSweeney offers lightness and depth seamlessly and bounces along as a main character we love and can also see the gaping flaws in.
Amélie (the show) has a bit of a dark sense of humour at times which I appreciate. Amélie (the character) has her goldfish try and kill itself because of her neurotic mother. Amélie (the character, again) is so connection-deprived by her Old War Medic Father that when he checks her pulse it suddenly races because he held her so little. He mistakes this for a heart condition and removes her from school. The cartoonish lightness Amélie (the show, again) takes as it bounces along this little girl's life gives the world a sense of realness, in a strange way. This isn’t a world where everything goes right all the time- most of the characters are miserable, even if it is a romantic version of our world- where most of the characters end up with someone else.
It didn’t remind me of Paris but it did remind me of the romance of Paris. There’s a sense where you can disappear in how big the city is, and whatever part you find and carve out for yourself is unique. It is a place where you feel like you can reinvent yourself, find yourself, build a life, leave a life, figure it all out, or have nothing figured out yet. This production does a good job of bringing that romanticism to life without polishing all the edges. It’s still rough and a little grimy, but you can feel the magic in the air.
WITCH Theatre once again brings a big show to little Wellington and I am thankful that they are dedicating themselves to doing so. Without them we would be all the poorer, having to miss so many large musicals. I’m glad they have found a home at the Hannah Playhouse. At Te Auaha you could see the orchestra but unfortunately Te Auaha has closed its doors. At Circa I don’t remember seeing the orchestra all too plainly (but perhaps that is my memory that’s failing). At The Hannah we can see the musicians up on the balcony and up behind the stage, playing their instruments, being conducted by Hayden Taylor.
More info here on the season that’s on and keep your eye out for the next WITCH production: Ride the Hurricane.