BECAUSE WE CAN

 (Anthony Stonier and Lisa Bobbert)

Review of the production at the 2012 Witness Hilton Art Festival by Caroline Smart

Fresh from their successful appearance at The Witness Hilton Arts Festival, Anthony Stonier and Lisa Bobbert perform back on home ground at Rhumbelow Theatre in a show simply titled Because We Can!

Long-time friends and colleagues from their time with the Playhouse Loft Theatre Company, these performers compiled a programme ten years ago of songs with brutal-styled lyrics. They called it Brutal Tunes, which I directed and it went on to receive critical acclaim, play to full houses and receive numerous awards. It is still regularly revived to equal success.

Bobbert and Stonier felt the time had come for a follow-up show to Brutal Tunes. Not a sequel, as such, but a music revue. As they describe it, it encompasses material “from some shows we have done, some we wish we had done, some we wish we hadn’t done and some we are still determined to do!”

The capacity audience at the performance I attended at Hilton was testimony of the popularity of these two performers. They opened with a jazzy languorous version of Anything You Can Do from Annie Get Your Gun gaining with momentum as the rivalry of the song increases. The Ballad of Otto Titsling saw Bobbert looking hilarious in a Groucho Marx mask as the Frenchman Phillip de Brassiere who steals and patent Titsling’s invention. Taken from I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change came the delicious Always a Bridesmaid, Never a Bride from Bobbert followed by Stonier in fine fettle with Don’t Put Your Daughter on the Stage, Mrs Worthington.

Two songs from Spamelot were a good choice– the poignant Whatever Happened to My Part and the amusing send-up of overly-sentimental numbers, The Song that Goes like This.

Not so successful were Bobbert’s interpretation of the Shirley Bassey hit, Where Do I Begin, and Stonier’s rendering of the Al Jolson classic, Mammy. However, I was certainly in the minority with my misgivings as the audience loved them … and they are the ones who pay for tickets!

Other numbers were Noel Coward’s Uncle Harry, Little Girls from Annie, Don’t Tell Mama from Cabaret and the title song from La Cage aux Folles, closing with one of the most popular numbers from Brutal Tunes – their South African take on Let’s Do It!

The show is a veritable potpourri of moods and styles but the duo’s energy and charm pull it off to provide a very entertaining programme.

Because We Can! runs at Rhumbelow Theatre over this weekend and the next – ie from September 28 to October 7. Friday and Saturday performances at 20h00 with Sunday shows at 18h30. The venue opens 90 minutes before show for picnic dinner/lunch.

Tickets R100 (less 25% pensioners and tables of eight or more for the first weekend only).

Take along food picnic baskets and braais will be available. There is limited secure parking and booking is essential. A cash bar is available (no alcohol may be brought on to the premises). Rhumbelow Theatre is situated in Cunningham Avenue off Bartle Road.

Booking is through Computicket or contact Roland on 031 205 7602 (h) or 082 499 8636, email roland@stansell.za.net or visit www.rhumbelow.za.net – Caroline Smart