In the spirit of the Tivoli Theatre, Cheek to Cheek is a Vaudeville extravaganza featuring about 30 short pieces that cover most of the disciplines of the stage.
Your appetite for the entertainment to follow was whet the moment you entered the foyer. In addition to some street theatre being performed outside, the walls were adorned with photographs from the golden era of Australian Vaudeville. A collection of props was on view, as well as a large cabinet containing a Punch and Judy booth circa 1930 and a collection of the characters.
The show covered all the bases of Vaudeville beginning with a Sexy Siren singing “Let’s do it (let’s fall in love)”. The host for the evening was “Tootsie Murphy” who held the show together well. Over the two hours of entertainment (plus a 20 minute interval) the show moved from song into tap dancing, comedy skits, low altitude trapeze and rope work, fire twirling, clowning, tumbling acrobatics, hula hoops, dubious magic, juggling and various dance forms. This was all sound tracked by various backing tracks as well was a jazz duo located on either side of the stage.
Also present in a number of the pieces were puppets of various forms. Most of the rather small puppets were operated in black theatre mode with the added camouflage of smoke. We also saw a shadow piece that used a round tent structure as a background, a cavorting hat and feather boa, and a singing hand puppet whale.
Recreating the spirit of Vaudeville in the early part of the 20th century, the script stuck firmly to the language and values of the time which some may find offensive today. There were borderline racist names given to a troupe of “Chinese” tumblers and a black faced co host introduced in the second act. While not to everyone’s taste, it certainly lent a air of authenticity to the event, as if presenting a living time capsule. They managed to slip in the odd contemporary reference as a sly wink to the audience.
The first comedy specific piece was a performance of the classic “Who’s on First?” routine. Scholars of Abbott and Costello would be able to point out the inadequacies of the piece, but overall they did a great job of it. I did however notice the early inclusion of the line “don’t all baseball players have strange names!” which gave away the whole point of the sketch to the rare person who was unfamiliar with it.
The remainder of the show contained many other comically tinged segments. There was a running joke through the show featuring the argumentative banter between Tootsie and the voice over guy which was played in a suitably hammy manner. An amusingly timid Professor gave a lecture of the various uses of spoons with a mild “freak show” ending. The Great Calisto performed dodgy card tricks that rarely worked. The Amazing Mikki was a juggler who performed her act with hilarious apathy. The Mad Hatters executed a wonderful slapstick routine that was very much in the vein of The Three Stooges. We even had a touch of Burlesque with a puppet named Nellie the Nudist.
All the performers were 2nd year students from Swinburne, so their inexperience did show through at times, but they all gave energetic performances. What really impressed me was that a majority of the cast were multi skilled and took on a number of different disciplines over the course of the evening. We had tap dancers performing acrobatics, singers delivering comedy and clowns twirling fire.
The usual opening night occurrences such as missed cues, bum notes, late curtain openings and off centre spotlights were noticeable, but are sure to be addressed as the season progresses. Possibly due to jitters there were a few awkward ends to some of the segments with the cast exiting the stage well before the end of the music, leaving the audience unsure of where to insert their applause. For the most part the crowd chose to ignore the errors and hooted, hollered and applauded throughout.
Cheek to Cheek is a wonderful night out that is suitable for the entire family. Those who experienced the Tivoli in it’s heyday can relive those wonderful memories, while the rest of us can experience the magic of Vaudeville for the first time.