Carbon-copy Stage Show

Newcastle Herald

Tuesday February 26, 2008

Ken Longworth

REVIEW

THE BREAKFAST CLUB

Presented by: JJK Productions

Venue: The Playhouse, Newcastle (phone 4929 1977)

Season: Ends on Saturday

THE Breakfast Club raises questions about adapting films for the stage.

Judging from the comments of a young woman who was sitting behind me, this adaptation is a slavish word-by-word, scene-by-scene transfer from the popular 1985 film about five teenagers in a day-long school detention who eventually cross class and cultural barriers to become friends.

The young woman was able to utter dialogue before it was spoken, to laugh in advance of the jokes and to tell her companion what was coming. It reminded me of my experience a few years ago while watching Dirty Dancing, another carbon-copy stage show, with the audience cheering and applauding in anticipation of what they were to see and hear next.

What I found especially frustrating about The Breakfast Club was that while the five young actors playing the detainees give excellent performances and work well off each other as an ensemble, they are repeatedly undercut by the shortness of scenes and cinematic fades to black. Theatre needs strong and sustained exchanges of dialogue and there's too little of that here.

Thanks to the players, there are occasional moments that have theatrical magic.

When Carl Young's nerd Brian Johnston is being bullied by Mark Coles's tough guy John Bender about his sexual experience, for example, Young's suddenly and softly expressed, "Excuse me for being a virgin, I'm sorry . . . " packs a strong emotional punch.

Coles, likewise, engages in the tale's showiest role, Nicholas Stabler as wrestling team star Andrew Clarke, revealing hitherto unseen depths in his first major non-musical part. Jade Hillard, as school princess Claire Standish, and Jessica Tanner, as compulsive liar Alison Reynolds, offer strongly contrasted teenage girls on the verge of womanhood.

But while they have more to offer than the stereotyped adults Barry Shepherd's school principal and Timothy Blundell's janitor it is frustrating to see the limitations the copy-and-paste script places on them. Directors Jacquelyn Brown and John Shearman are similarly hamstrung.

At the end, the eager fan of the film behind me declared that the experience made her want to watch The Breakfast Club DVD again as soon as she got home.

This is not what theatre is or should be about.

© 2008 Newcastle Herald

Back to News Index | Back to Home