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Van Hemert, Tess (2018) Priscilla Queen of the Desert: The Musical. The Australasian Journal of Popular Culture, 7(2), pp. 327-329.

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Priscilla Queen of the Desert: The Musical, Simon Phillips (2018), book by Stephen Elliot and Allan Scott, Regent Theatre, Melbourne, 17 March 2018.

Reviewed by Tess Van Hemert, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia

Celebrating its tenth anniversary, the return of Priscilla Queen of the Desert: The Musical

(Priscilla) to Australia was marked by the recreation of an iconic scene: Mitzi, Felicia and

Bernadette, in full drag, posing triumphantly atop the entrance of one of the country’s oldest theatres, the Regent Theatre, Melbourne. Following a successful international run, Priscilla opened in Melbourne on 30 January 2018, and will subsequently travel to Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane. The musical had previously toured on London’s West End, Broadway, across

Europe and parts of Australasia, following the success of the first Australian run of the stage show from 2006 to 2008. In the show’s original run, it played for eleven months for an audience of 500,000, taking $40 million at the box office. The show has been internationally acclaimed, winning the Lawrence Olivier Award and a Tony Award for Best Costume Design

(Tim Chappel and Lizzy Gardiner) and a Theatre World Award for Tony Sheldon, who plays

Bernadette. Sheldon reprised the role for the 2018 production, celebrating 1800 performances as Bernadette. The role of Tick was played by David Harris, with Euan Doidge as Felicia.

Other key roles included Robert Grubb as Bob and Emma Powell as Shirley.

The revamped version of Priscilla features over 500 visually spectacular costumes:

Mitzi’s memorable pink and orange dress adorned with thongs, the eye-catching bell bottom pants and outlandish wigs in the ‘I Will Survive’ number, and the trio making their final trek up Kings Canyon wearing their iconic, glittering, feather-plumed headdresses. Most of the songs from the original musical remain, from ‘It’s Raining Men’, ‘I love the Nightlife’,

‘Finally’ and ‘I Will Survive’, with a few added references to Kylie Minogue. Standout performances included the opening number, ‘It’s Raining Men’, with the three divas, resplendent in silver evening gowns, suspended above the stage in front of the Sydney

Harbour Bridge. The divas, played by Angelique Cassimatis, Samm Hagen and Cle Morgan, appear at key moments and their powerhouse performances add an impressive level of drama to the show. Felicia’s own diva moment, perched on a silver stiletto on top of the newly painted Priscilla, is still as visually spectacular as it was in the film that inspired the musical.

The original film, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (Elliot, 1994), was released at a time when Australian cinema began to celebrate characters from the margins of society. Strictly Ballroom (Luhrmann, 1992) and Muriel’s Wedding (Hogan, 1994), along with The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, formed what has been called the

‘glitter cycle’ (Rustin 2001). This was a group of films with a kitsch aesthetic, popular music and loveable protagonists struggling to overcome adversity. Director, Stephan Elliot, remarked that the meaning of the film changed in relation to the different cultural contexts in which it was viewed, with American audiences valuing the story for its LGBT themes, while

Australian audiences tended to ‘embrace it as just another successful Australian film’

(O’Regan 1996: 55).

Priscilla’s return to Australia in 2018 is timely, given the recent and long overdue legalization of same-sex marriage and the current debates around gender equality and diversity in the entertainment sector. While the original themes of tolerance and inclusion remain, some scenes could have been updated to be more culturally sensitive. For instance, the film and previous iterations of the musical were criticized for reductive and stereotypical representations, particularly of Bob’s Filipino mail order bride, Cynthia. Cynthia’s portrayal in the 2018 show continues to play on this stereotype, but is nonetheless embraced by the audience. In another iconic scene, Tick, Felicia and Bernadette perform ‘I Will Survive’ with the Indigenous community, in a celebration of both marginalized groups finding solidarity in the musical number. However, in the theatrical production, the interaction between the two groups is reduced to a single Indigenous tour guide, leading a group of tourists around the outback in a bid to give them an ‘authentic’ experience. While the musical number itself has lost none of its vigour or visual appeal, the poignancy of this moment in the original film is not translated to the stage.

The musical is clearly geared towards an Australian audience familiar with the classic film. The stark contrast between the barren outback towns of Broken Hill, Coober Pedy and

Alice Springs and the gaudy pink bus still appeals. Iconic lines are delivered with emphasis, anticipating a heighted audience response in return. The scene in the Broken Hill pub was an audience favourite, when Bernadette dismisses the rough barmaid, Shirley, telling her to

‘light your tampon and blow your box apart’. Bernadette’s later remark, ‘I don’t know if that ugly wall of suburbia has been put there to stop them getting in, or us getting out’ astutely comments on the suburbs marking a clear divide between the city and the outback.

Bernadette is responsible for many of the show’s most memorable lines, including ‘That’s just what this country needs, a cock in a frock on a rock’, which has now arguably come to reference the musical itself as much as the story of the trio on tour. The brash humour that captured Australian attention in the original film may not translate in the same way to international audiences, but is characteristic ‘of quintessentially Australian values, such as self-deprecation, blunt humour and determination in the face of adversity’ (Buckmaster

2014).

Given Priscilla’s prodigious history, it is perhaps no surprise that the homecoming of the iconic pink bus has been celebrated with full houses and standing ovations. Musicals based on films have a history of success as ‘although Broadway is rarely regarded as a big business in the same way as Hollywood is, the most successful musicals can outperform the silver screen’ (Anon. 2016). In Australian musical theatre, the lack of local content has begun to be rectified, with recent developments including Strictly Ballroom the Musical (2014) and the much-anticipated Muriel’s Wedding the Musical (2017). While there still is something of an ideological clash between the aspirational stories of Broadway and the often-cynical cultural outlook of Australian content, the success of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, The

Musical demonstrates that there is something about the story of Mitzi, Felicia and Bernadette that we continue to hold dear.

References

Anon. (2016), ‘The economics of Broadway: No business like show business’, The

Economist, 16 June, https://www.economist.com/news/business/21700674-our-

analysis-art-and-science- creating-hit-show-no-business-show-business. Accessed 25

March 2018.

Buckmaster, Luke (2014), ‘The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert: Rewatching

classic Australian films’, The Guardian, 9 May,

https://www.theguardian.com/film/australia-culture-blog/2014/may/09/the-

adventures-of-priscilla-queen-of-the-desert-rewatching-classic-australian-films.

Accessed 27 March 2018. Accessed 25 March 2018.

Elliot, Stephan (1994), The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Australia: Twentieth

Century Fox Home Entertainment, Polygram Filmed Entertainment, Metro Goldwyn

Mayer & Australian Film Finance Corporation.

Hogan, P. J. (1994), Muriel’s Wedding, Australia: Film Victoria & Australian Film Finance

Corporation.

Luhrmann, Baz (1992), Strictly Ballroom, Australia: Twentieth Century Fox.

O’Regan, Tom (1996) Australian National Cinema, London and New York: Routledge.

Rustin, Emily (2001), ‘Romance and sensation in the “Glitter Cycle”’, in Ian Craven (ed.),

Australian Cinema in the 1990s, New York: Frank Cass Publishers, pp. 131–48.

Contact:

E-mail: [email protected]