Victor Harbor residents are great supporters of community theatre and they are rewarded by companies like Zest Theatre Group bringing them a wide range of popular traditional and contemporary musicals for their entertainment. Directed by Peta Bowey, this year’s Zest production is Wicked, by Stephen Schwartz, an ambitious undertaking for a company with relatively limited resources. Nevertheless, there is much to admire in this adaptation. Bec Pynor as Elphaba is a standout, perhaps not surprisingly given that she is a Bachelor of Music graduate, but her characterisation matches her vocal ability providing the most rounded performance of the night. Lily Van Rhoda is also excellent as Galinda, providing a confident performance from someone who is still at school, matching Pynor admirably. Her comic timing and facial expressions are particularly good. One to watch. Josh Harvey plays Fiyero and is every bit the suave and handsome aristocrat. There could be more consistency in his vocal projection, particularly during dialogue.
The other leads are Terry Mountstephen who relished the role of Madame Morrible, Tom Richardson who cultivates affection as a cute and somewhat pitiful Boq, Molly Peier in the difficult role of the increasingly unappealing Nessarose, Michael Harris as the charming and manipulative Wizard and Emma Muhlack who is superb as the last of the talking animal’s Dr Dillamond. The ensemble is of mixed ability as you would expect in an all-inclusive production of this nature but there were many good faces and most stayed in character throughout.
Where this production suffers most is in the music. Using backing tracks is a good alternative for community companies like this but Zest would have benefited from engaging someone who could adapt the backing to the performance with effective cuts for dialogue, fading and scene change music. There are many software suites to enable this to be done inexpensively. In addition, more consideration needs to be given to the set changes, ensuring that they are as fast, smooth and unobtrusive as possible.
The audience of families of all ages appreciated the performance and I hope the community continue to support them with the rest of the season.
