If you were to ask the three most important people in your life to describe you, would their answers be the same? We often mean different things to different people and our perceptions of others can be altered depending on the type of relationship we enjoy with them.
These themes of truth and perspective are explored in the new, entirely WA-made musical Some Kind Of Beautiful.
Billed as a deeply moving, dark musical comedy, Some Kind of Beautiful starts with Kate. While dealing with the death of her older lover, Paul, Kate discovers that he was never actually divorced from his ex-wife and that she and Paul’s teenage daughter have inherited the home she lives in.
‘So the three women come together in the house, where the relationships and the misunderstandings all start to unravel and within the monologues of these three women we start to find each of their relationships with this male protagonist,’ says writer, Belinda Dunbar.
‘Every woman’s journey leads to a story of understanding that he was a different person to each of these women.’
‘One of the things I find interesting about this piece,’ says musical director, Tim Cunniffe, ‘is that we get such a clear picture of who this guy was- the lover, the husband and the father- we get a picture of him without him even being there.
‘He’s a real present and dynamic fourth character in the show but he never appears on the stage.’
Cunniffe and Dunbar are a formidable creative team. With successful seasons of BadGirls (2007) and Threeway (2008) under their belt, Some Kind Of Beautiful will be their third musical collaboration but the first to feature entirely original music and lyrics.
This is not, however, your average run of the mill musical where emotional highs build up to a point at which the audience can anticipate the arrival of a song.
‘It’s very experimental in some ways, what we’re doing, because we’re trying to see how far we can alter the way that the music and the text is used,’ says Dunbar.
‘And exploring the way they influence each other,’ adds Cunniffe.
‘Some of the emotional moments in the show are actually spoken rather than sung and in that way, some of the narrative is sung rather than spoken. Kind of blurring the edges of the rules a little bit, but it seems to be working.’
Some Kind Of Beautiful will be DownStairs at the Maj from Tuesday, July 14 to Saturday, July 25.
Amy Henderson
