A Star is Torn at the SiLo Theatre

By FRANCIS TILL

Welcome to Richard Head's living room. Richard will be with you in one second. His mascara needs a touch-up and he hasn't finished chatting to the Wanganui community papers about his brilliant (extended by popular demand) production, Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance, in which he, well, sings, and you know, dances.

As he does for us when he bursts through the beaded doorway, resplendent in overstuffed spandex, belting out showtunes in ways that would make Liza proud. Not to mention Judy. A Star is Torn has bowled audiences over at Bats in Wellington and took awards at the Fringe Festival, where it was described as a "faaagulous ... drag tragedy". It's well placed here at the SiLo, directed by Peter Hammill.

And for all that the audience almost never stops laughing at the overripe, low-camp antics on stage, it actually is a tragedy, or at least, a complex little onion of a script with a melancholy core.

The text and performance are by Shane Bosher who delivers a thoroughly packed hour of Richard via anecdote, song and dance (imagine LaLa in tutu leaping through an energetic and even graceful rehearsal of the opening sequence from Fame).

In the tradition of one-actor shows, Bosher ignores the fourth wall. The play is an extended conversation with us and he is not afraid to descend into the audience on an impromptu whim to emphasise that point.

Bosher knows Richard is a wrenchingly sad figure, propped up on denial, and he delivers that message with finesse as inescapable but unobtrusive subtext, which is a major accomplishment.

On opening night, the musical background was so loud as to drown out a lot of what was being said (and sung) on stage, always a danger in the SiLo, but a problem usually fixed after the first show.

There may also be too many show-tune skits - they work as punctuation, but falter as a substitute for text. Still, the overall production is first rate as niche, if not really fringe, theatre.