WAAPA students a class act
WA Academy of Performing Arts productions must strike a delicate balance between the academy's objectives - its students' training and the imperative to showcase their talents to the performing arts and entertainment community, and, of course, to put on a swell show.
That last priority is even more important now.
The demise of some local companies has thinned out the options for theatre audiences and WAAPA can mount large-cast productions that can't be matched elsewhere.
The annual Broadway extravaganzas staged by the music theatre department at the Regal Theatre are the most prominent example of this balancing act.
The third-year acting students' blitz of Noel Coward's parlour melodrama Easy Virtue matches them for purpose, and for sheer entertainment.
Much credit is due to director Jason Langley, who marshalled a knockout How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying for WAAPA last year. Langley doubles the size of the cast by adding a sassy, slinky chorus who sing and play their way through a set of Coward numbers, from the satiric Don't Put Your Daughter on the Stage Mrs Worthington (performed by Andreas Lohmeyer) to the sentimental Mad About the Boy (Grace Smilbert).
There were a couple of clever versions of recent hits, a gorgeous take on Sia's Titanium (Charlotte Davenport) and Christina Aguilera's Beautiful (Madeleine Vizard, who obviously didn't heed Mrs Worthington's entreaties) along with much eavesdropping, interjecting and lascivious hanging about from all and sundry.
It all worked swimmingly, as did the device of reciting Coward's often very droll stage directions, which added a nice Brechtian touch and gave others in the chorus a piece of the spotlight.
Easy Virtue tells the story of Larita (Emilie Cocquerel), an American "it girl" with a past who causes chaos in the posh English household of Colonel and Mrs Whittaker (Will Thompson - another escapee from a famous Mrs Worthington - and Shaynee Brayshaw) by marrying their gilded but inattentive son John (Samuel Delich).
It's got all of Coward's sheen and wit but it's a little didactic and incomplete. Nevertheless, there are great opportunities for all the cast, and they take them energetically.
Thompson and Brayshaw perform with nice touches, and Justina Ward and Cecelia Peters bring more zest than their characters warrant to the Whittakers' gormless daughters, Marion and Hilda.
Best of all is Ayeesha Ash's charming, shrewd Sarah Hurst, the only real friend Larita makes in the can of worms she lands in. Ash was also outstanding in WAAPA's recent Love and Money and I predict big things.
It's Larita's show, though, and Cocquerel has both the talent and the skill for the part.
She's ravishing in a splendid collection of outfits (designed by Cherish Marrington) and carries all her character's dispositions, from coquette to sermoniser, with impact.
Her dialogue needs a little work but maturity will undoubtedly do that for her.
Keep an eye out for her - she'll be around.
