Dolly Parton’s ‘9 To 5’ musical is a great night out. It is hard to believe that a storyline about a misogynist pig in 2022 could get laughs and applause but the sentiment of the original 1980 movie still holds for the 21st century.
The Australian cast of 9 to 5 is top shelf with theatre royalty Marina Prior as Violet Newstead (the Lily Tomlin role in the movie) and Caroline O’Connor as Roz Keith. They lead Eddie Perfect as Franklin Hart (played by Dabney Colman in the movie), Casey Donovan as Judy Bernly (the Jane Fonda role) and Erin Clare as Doralee Rhodes (the Dolly Parton role).
What carries this show is not the songs, but the story. Unlike ‘Mamma Mia’, this is not the singalong show based around old Dolly hits strung together by a plot. ‘9 To 5’ features the original Dolly Parton theme song with all new music by Dolly written for the show. Quite frankly, its not Dolly’s finest musical moment but it is more play with songs than musical with dialogue.
‘9 To 5’ has taken 14 years to get to Melbourne. The original theatre production started off on Broadway in 2009 so there has been ample time to fine-tune this and with that, it flows with never a dull moment. The stage show was adapted from the original Patricia Resnick screenplay with all five main characters kept true to the original movie characters representing the original movie.
Visually, the show resembles the colour, charm and glamour of Dolly herself. Dolly herself features prominently via pre-recorded video pieces for Melbourne, customized right down to a mention of St Kilda localizing the production.
Like the movie, this production is set in 1980 when chauvinism ruled, sexual harassment was common place and all things being equal, nothing was equal. Franklin Hart is a corrupt, corporate boss abusing his power by using sexism as a currency. Things start to come undone when the disconnected Violet and Doralee connect through new employee Judy and the Franklin Hart corporate tactics are laid bare for his formula comes undone.
The storyline isn’t that far removed from the many scandals making news today. This show is serious stuff you can laugh and applaud to.
9 to 5 is at the State Theatre, Arts Centre Melbourne until 17 September 2022.
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