By BRUCE DENNILL
The Dress Code / Directed by Alan Swerdlow / Theatre On The Square, Sandton, Johannesburg
In a show put together as commentary on the impact – on our confidence, behaviour and social interactions – of the clothes we wear, it is odd that The Dress Code’s three stars, Sharon Spiegel-Wagner, Lorri Strauss and Ntambo Rapatla initially step onto stage in outfits of dubious merit. That is soon explained via a clever link to the following sketch, after which there is the first of several costume changes, as you’d expect.
The tone of the piece moves from droll to cheesy to thought-provoking, circling back and forth through all of those options repeatedly. Perhaps unexpectedly, given that revues are generally not noted for their profundity, it is the more serious moments that largely stand out, highlighting the more serious themes that the images we project sometimes obscure. Spiegel-Wagner’s slam poetry, dedicated to a daughter whose naïve innocence teaches her (and the audience) a more important lesson about the importance of looks than a decade’s worth of Cosmopolitan magazines ever could is a highlight, as is Rapatla’s tribute to the influence of her mother on her view of what matters in appearance terms.
The songs chosen span genres, tempos and mood, taking in material from everyone from Meghan Trainor to Burt Bacharach via the Doors, Elton John and Sharon Robinson, all of which helps to keep musical director Clifford Cooper on his toes. Some of the compositions make direct allusions to clothes, accessories and looks – Trainor’s Made You Look; Barry and Black’s Diamonds Are Forever, Bryan Hyland’s Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini and one or two others – but others shift the focus to associated themes, such as the feelings associated with confidence (which may have something to do with how you’re dressed) or the spaces inhabited in which such confidence seems in short supply. Elton John’s I’m Still Standing, Carole King’s Natural Woman and On My Own from Les Miserables all fit in well in this regard.
Spiegel-Wagner, in previous revue shows in she’s written and starred in, has displayed a formidable talent for arranging medleys in stimulated and sophisticated ways, and a combination her e of Jim Croce’s Time In A Bottle and Sting’s Fragile will have musicians in the audience marvelling at the directions in which both well-known melodies are taken as they intertwine, and the apparent ease with which Spiegel-Wagner negotiates these complexities as a vocalist.
The various dresses worn by the cast and some shimmering curtains help to maintain visual appeal, but that vibrancy is not quite matched by the movement on the singers on the stage, with some bespoke, detailed choreography and a touch more fluidity between scenes and sketches being perhaps the minor missing elements in the mix here. The voices all shine, though, with Strauss backing up some cocky narrative stances with powerful delivery and Rapatla adding evocative contralto timbre to many of her numbers.
