By BRUCE DENNILL
A Star Is Born / Directed by Amanda Bothma / Theatre On The Square, Sandton, Johannesburg
There is no way to spin Judy Garland’s life and the trauma she endured. She was a generational talent responsible for some of the American songbook’s most enduring versions of famous standards and the centrepiece of the industry-altering showpiece that was The Wizard Of Oz, among many other successful films. But she was also an almost life-long drug addict (initially through no fault of her own), abused by the Hollywood studio executives who controlled her life, and who married and divorced a string of men, with those relationships often involving exploitation of different kinds – all before dying young of a barbiturate overdose (thought to be accidental).
Singer Kerry Hiles doesn’t try to ape Garland’s distinctive vocal delivery – though there are echoes of the same rich tone where her range overlaps directly with her subject’s. This is a cabaret-style tribute show, with a well-researched script that takes audiences through the incredible highs and desperate lows of Garland’s life and career. Hiles knows her material and delivers the stories with vivacity and precision, grabbing and holding attention even when there is no music involved, which is important when people think they are only there for the music.
The music is everything you hope it will be, though, with Luke Holder being that most weirdly underrated of facets in a show like this: a superb accompanist in all areas of that arena, from playing the compositions smoothly and with expressive phrasing to the smaller, more nuanced parts like slightly delaying a chord or run when singer’s breathing or emotion calls for it and thus making what is clearly a brilliantly rehearsed partnership a little bit richer.
Hiles remains, without ever coming across as pushy or indulgent or ego-led, the focus of the show, moving well to accompany her singing but letting her voice, and the way she wraps it around a setlist packed with music of ageless quality, do the real talking. It needs underlining just how superb her vocals are here. This is not music written to some guileless contemporary template, where identical verse follows identical verse over some synthesized backing.
Garland lived in a time where songwriters coupled free-flowing creativity with razor wit and musicality of the highest order, resulting in songs with multiple key changes, staccato lyrical delivery, startling intervals and, variously, fizzing energy or heart-rending vulnerability. Irving Berlin, Ralph Blane and Hugh Martin, Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler, Cole Porter and others crafted songs for performers that, if those performers were capable of delivering on all the shades and subtlety, would land in a way that would thrill, amaze and beguile listeners. Garland was one such performer, and the undoubted impact of her work is the reason that shows like this one and others like it exist. Hiles is another such performer, able to deliver – in terms of the purity, technical control and passionate expressiveness of her singing – on a similar level to her muse. Seeing her accomplish what she does in this piece is something every lover of great music should do, with the you-couldn’t-write-this-stuff drama of Garland’s life story being a considerable, textured bonus.