Lunar Tunes

Sydney Morning Herald

Friday September 5, 2008

Ellie Harvey

Mixing science fiction with hula girls, this revival is a technicolour blast, reports Ellie Harvey.

IT'S a cross between Star Wars and The Muppet Show, incorporates Polynesian kitsch and provokes an "oh my god, they can't say that stuff" response from its audience, according to its producer. Welcome Risky Lunar Love to the musical stage.

"It's very hard to simply define," says producer Oliver Wenn. "It's a tiki sci-fi musical, so it takes all the elements of '50s pop cult, such as grass skirts, hula girls, mai tais . . . mixed with sci-fi culture, Family Guy, South Park, all those naff robots." Wenn adds that it's an "absolutely piss-funny musical".

"The story is officially: sexy alien invader manipulates the desires of two rival science-fiction writers in a bid to destroy our planet and colonise a new one," Wenn says.

The multiple storylines include the Venus Girls, who are searching for sperm to create the people for a new planet.

This provokes the question - is this performance just a bizarre realisation of every teenage boy's fantasy?

"Absolutely," Wenn says, explaining that the market is generation X and Y. "It's [for] anyone that grew up on Star Wars, anyone that grew up on the Muppets, anyone that loved Austin Powers. Even the way the story is told is very tangential, very irreverent, kind of deconstructivist comedy that you see a lot in modern stuff like Flight Of The Conchords."

"What's amazing about it is it's completely unique in the fact that it's completely unoriginal. It's got all the elements and we've twisted it and turned it on its head, put it into a modern style and pumped it back out with our own story."

Director John Sheedy says it's just about pure entertainment. "One of the things that attracted me to it . . . was I read the script and I laughed a lot. The songs are really naughty and hilarious."

Writer Luke Milton stumbled upon the title when he entered Kerry O'Sullivan, the name of his girlfriend at the time, into an anagram generator.

"He always thought that that would be a good title for a show. So from then he conjured up all sorts of different images and started to write his next show," Wenn says.

Wenn performed in Milton's original production in Perth in 2002 and has dedicated the past 2 1/2 years to developing a production company and finding funding for the show's revival.

Now it boasts the credentials of choreographer John O'Connell (Moulin Rouge and a sequence at this year's Academy Awards), designer Gypsy Taylor (Superman Returns and Chronicles Of Narnia I) and musical director Ross Johnston from the band Machine Gun Fellatio.

Wenn says it has been amazing working with them all, especially as a first-time producer. "[There is] some very, very good talent behind this show."

Johnson has created 17 tracks from an original score by Brent Hill. "The music is at once rock'n'roll, as it is lounge, as it is '50s tiki, as it is Jailhouse Rock," says Wenn, continuing his list by breaking out into tunes like a human jukebox. A live band - including a saxophonist, marimba player, drummer, bassist, lead guitarist and keyboards player - performs on the night in fluorescent skeleton suits.

It complements an equally crazy wardrobe including the Venus Girls, who wear green make-up, pink curly hair, flashing antennae and killer heels.

"I want to create entertainment," Wenn says. "What I'd really like to do is get our generation going to the theatre. If I could put it in a nutshell, I wanna go down to a rugby [league] club like the Rabbitohs and say, 'Guys, come and see my show,' because they would absolutely love it. But there's just this culture in Australia that theatre is high art, depressing, boring and it can be like that sometimes. I'm not saying it doesn't have its place but this show is not trying to pitch that way."

RISKY LUNAR LOVE

September 15 to October 4, CarriageWorks, Eveleigh, 1300 723 038, $30-$45.

© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald

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