You’re gone. You took our players. You took our play. All we’re left with now is the confetti that’s still crumpled at the bottom of our bags, photos of ourselves with a giant pink ampersand, and soo many catchy songs stuck in our heads.
You were the musical we never saw coming. Amongst all the familiar and comforting big name musicals, here you were, coming at us with images of Rob Mills wearing too much eyeliner and Casey Donovan dressed like she was headed to a pirate party.
After initially playing coy in your intentions of a Sydney visit, you eventually graced us with your presence for six months. At the start you threw vague buzzwords at us about being “pure joy” and the “hottest ticket in town”. So even though we had absolutely no idea what the heck you were on about, we booked a babysitter, grabbed a large glass of wine, and hoped to stay awake by the interval.
And wow did you entertain us! You were totally over-the-top – lighting, steam jets, sparks, glitter, confetti, mid-song costume changes, and Juliet literally swinging from a chandelier. You taught us not to judge a musical by its cover – which is good because you had 32 of them, all produced by just one guy (who it turns out has written the entire soundtracks of our youth). You were cocky in your song choices too. I mean really – six Backstreet Boys Songs? And how did you know we’d love ‘Backstreet’s Back’ even more than we did when it came out 27 years ago?
And you were funny. Really funny. You combined the two things that everyone almost universally has had shoved down their throats at some point in their lives – popular chart music, and Shakespeare. As a result, we were all in on your jokes. We laughed at your references to Hamlet being about a happy marriage, and Juliet’s proclamation that ‘doing it once shouldn’t count’. We laughed at the comedic placement of your songs – particularly the perfectly timed ‘Oops! I Did it Again’ and ‘Since U Been Gone’.
But more often than not we laughed at the brilliant comedic delivery of your cast. Amy Lehpamer made us laugh with nothing more than an expression and cleverly calculated pause. Hayden Tee did things to Katy Perry that made us go wild.
And while we’re on the subject of cast, you may have drawn us in with Casey and Rob’s well-earnt reputations, but you surprised us with the unexpected magic of Lorinda May Merrypor, Desse Dutlow, Yashith Fernando – and really just any of the eight-strong main cast (hard to pick a favourite really), and multi-talented ‘players’. Then when we thought the casting couldn’t get any better, you also treated us to the globally phenomenal Keala Settle.
While it’s one thing to hit all the right notes, your brilliant cast made every second of their time on stage count. Lorinda belted out Britney even better than Britney could (sorry Brit – we still love you). And even though you’d sold yourself as being about ‘Juliet’s beginning and Romeo’s end’, you were sure we’d forgive your hypocrisy in bringing him back from the dead anyway. For the record, you were right about that too – it was impossible not to adore Blake Appelqvist’s ‘I’m a lover not a fighter’ character in all his ‘love-love-love me like you do’ glory.
We went in expecting female empowerment (which you delivered in spades), yet you also somehow got us invested in nine different relationships by the end of act one – count them if you don’t believe me. You then tied them up satisfactorily at the end, whilst also clarifying why we’ve had to call you ‘&’ Juliet all this time (you do know it’s awkward saying a title that begins with a conjunction, right?).
By the end of your run here, you had completely sold out every show, with an unusually high number of repeat customers. Despite your call card being a gold heart set against a pink background (a potentially limiting decision), in the end you were enjoyed by all – young and old, male and female, and everyone in between. Let’s be honest, we still can’t work out exactly how to describe you to our friends and family who never got to meet you. But one thing is clear – you knew exactly what you were doing all along, & Juliet. Well played.
With love,
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