No Way to Treat a Lady

13 Oct 2011-13 Nov 2011 ,

Theatre reviews

A less-than-lethal serial killer musical comedy

First published on 8 Dec 2010. Updated on 14 Nov 2011.

This event has finished

Christopher ‘Kit’ Gill (Jason Langley) is an out-of-work actor with some serious mother issues to work through. To get the write-up in the New York Times he’s always lusted after, Kit decides to apply his acting talents to the art of murder – specifically the strangulation of grey old biddies who remind him of his late actress mother. It’s not long before Morris Brummell, a nebbish detective still living with his own overbearing mother (Julie O’Reilly), is hot on the trail of the Singing Strangler – which gradually means neglecting his romance with gallery worker Sarah Stone (Katrina Retallick). After Kit contacts Morris out of the blue, the would-be cat and mouse become unexpectedly close.

No Way to Treat a Lady began life as a novel by William Goldman and was adapted into a film in 1968. The musical version (book, music and lyrics by Douglas J. Cohen) was first staged in 1987, and whatever may have been dark and twisted in the original William Goldman story got decidedly camped up along the way.

Which is fine – not every serial killer musical has to be Sweeney Todd. But a musical with a plot as wilfully preposterous as this deserves, nay, demands an over-the-top production. Director Stephen Colyer’s production is charming, but it doesn’t quite go far enough into the realm of Chandleresque silliness as it should. No Way to Treat a Lady isn’t especially witty as musical comedies go, but it at least opens itself up to comic possibilities in the playing of its two lead characters. As it is, we find ourselves neither drawn to the hero or the villain in this production.

It’s the reality of a limited-budget musical in a small theatre, but it’s hard not to feel short-changed musically too. The better the singing is – and Retallick particularly shows what she can do in that department – the more it shows up the keyboard-only soundtrack underscoring this production. Some moody sax might have been just the touch of noir the show needed to get somewhere more interesting.

More Sydney theatre reviews, plays and previews? Sign up to our weekly newsletter

Words by Darryn King