Hellbent at the Herald Theatre

By TARA WERNER

HERALD THEATRE, Auckland - O, the ways of wicked women. Mezzo-soprano Helen Medlyn and pianist Penny Dodd have created hellbent as a show celebrating seductresses, subversives and serial killers in equal proportion.

It's a potent musical cocktail that works because of the care given to the choice of material, with Medlyn singing songs from a wide variety of composers - ranging from Verdi to Sondheim, Mahler to Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, with Kurt Weill thrown in for good measure.

The singer can easily slide between jazz, Broadway, opera and theatre, and song content is deemed just as important as the tunes, with wit often being the common denominator. But bathos, resignation and bitterness are there aplenty as well, in a foray into the darker recesses of the emotions.

However, Medlyn had to work hard in the first few numbers to get the audience alongside her, and it showed in some stiff mannerisms. But once she relaxed, such as her humorous portrayal of a decidedly wicked murderess in Tom Lehrer's The Irish Ballad, contact was achieved and the show seemed to flow effortlessly.

By the next song, Weill's surreal Pirate Jenny , she was very much on her mettle, communicating its vengeful supernatural undertones with dramatic effect.

Revenge was also much at the core of the gypsy Azucena's exceedingly dark aria Condotta ell'era in ceppi from Verdi's Il Trovatore. Add to the concoction Medlyn's poignant interpretation of Mahler's touching Ich bin der welt abhanden gekommen and one would be forgiven for viewing the world only as a nasty, brutish place. But the way she gradually lightened the atmosphere with an amusing song by Sondheim and the parlour humour of Flanders and Swann nicely balanced all that gloom and doom.

Meanwhile, Dodd played an excellent accompaniment, quietly supporting Medlyn throughout and often grinning at her antics.

Hellbent takes no prisoners and for the most part portrays women who live on the edge of life. But you can't help but warm to those devilish dames.