All at sea.
Dames at Sea is a spoof on the lavish Busby Berkeley-style musicals from Hollywood’s Golden Era in the 1930s. Originally conceived by George Haimsohn, Jim Wise and Robin Miller as a sketch, it soon developed into a musical in its own right, premiering in 1966 and enjoying quite significant success since.
Because the emphasis is so firmly on parody, it comes as little surprise that this is a show about putting on a show. Producer Harry Hennesey has had eleven flops on the trot and desperately needs a hit. Unfortunately, the theatre in which his new show Dames at Sea is due to open is in the process of being demolished. But in true ‘the show must go on’ spirit, opening night goes ahead as planned when the leading lady, Mona Kent, persuades Captain Courageous to stage it on his ship.
Not a single cinematic cliché is missed. The heroine Ruby’s very first line is ‘I want to be a Broadway showgirl’ and within two minutes she has been told to go home, then informed that there is in fact a vacancy, auditioned, given the part, and moved in with the rest of the chorus line. Characters are forever discovering that they come from the same small town, or are even old flames. When Ruby is thinking of throwing in the towel she receives the standard ‘don’t turn your back on your dream’ speech, while entire dance routines are ‘improvised’ to songs that have only just been written. The numbers themselves are also parodies, delightful in their deliberate simplicity.
The compact Union Theatre makes for a highly appropriate setting. Something this enjoyably insubstantial could easily feel overblown on a West End stage (although it did appear in the West End in 1969 and 1989); but in this intimate venue things can be kept simple in terms of props and set and the brilliantly executed dance routines, choreographed by Drew McOnie, feel all the more exciting because of their proximity to the audience.
The director Kirk Jameson seems to have opted for a safe, middle ground between the exaggerations of spoof and playing things with a straight face, which does lead to some of the scenes feeling awkwardly pitched. There is, however, no disputing the strength of the cast. Of the men, Anthony Wise’s Harry Hennessey and Ian Mowat’s Captain Courageous stand out, but it’s three female performers who make the biggest impression. There is real refinement to Catriana Sandison’s performance as Joan, the leader of the chorus line, while as Ruby, Gemma Sutton engages both as an actor and singer. ‘Old hand’ Rosemary Ashe, however, comes off best in her brilliantly executed caricature of the fading prima donna, Mona Kent. Whether she is throwing a strop if her name isn’t in big enough letters, or chatting up any man who might help further her career, she demonstrates just how much control is actually required to give the impression of simply ‘belting out’ the numbers.
