This article first appeared in THE WEEKENDER

3rd May 2008

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We might joke about “the uncultured yanks”, but South Africans (like most people worldwide) imbibe American culture from a young age. We take this for granted when it comes to TV shows, movies and mainstream music, but it’s also true of the theatre – particularly musical theatre. Just ask those who have produced or performed in local stagings of popular musicals like Chicago, Hair or The Rocky Horror Show, which regularly play to packed houses while other productions languish in front of small audiences.

The funny thing is, very few of us have actually been to Broadway, the throbbing heart of American theatre and (along with London’s West End) the most prestigious geographical location in which to appear onstage. And though we take our cues from these Western metropolitan centres, we actually know relatively little about the Broadway “scene”.

For this reason, a show like Christine Pedi’s Great Dames has a twin appeal. On the one hand, it promises to “conjure up the Dolls, Divas, Broads, Babes and Bomb Shells with the songs that they made famous” – a musical revue that is partly driven by nostalgia for days gone by and partly contemporary. On the other hand, however, it offers a salutary reminder that sometimes we take the icons of stage and screen a little too seriously (encouraging them to take themselves too seriously).

Pedi has been involved for fourteen years with the satire Forbidden Broadway, a show that lampoons a variety of the productions running on Broadway each year. She is well-placed – along with the incorrigible Matthew Ward, who accompanies her on the piano – to expose to South African audiences the farcical underbelly of Broadway that is not often evinced by the bright lights and glamour of New York’s stages. But this is also an earnest tribute show; Pedi clearly idolises many of the female singers that she impersonates.

The list of names is impressive in itself, and it includes Judy Garland, Liza Minnelli, Ethel Merman, Barbara Streisand, Doris Day and Carol Channing. Pedi’s ability to mimic the accents, mannerisms and singing voices of these “dames” is uncanny – they are immediately recognisable. Equally enjoyable, however, is the reverse effect: when well-known songs are rendered unfamiliar by unusual arrangements. You may think, for instance, that you’ve heard songs by Abba once too often; Pedi comically revitalises them through her numerous personas.

Much of the humour resides in the witty lyrical subversion of iconic songs, largely courtesy of Gerard Allesandrini’s adaptations for Forbidden Brodway. Never mind “Hooray for Hollywood” – Pedi asks, “Who’s Gay in Hollywood?” (Answer: no-one, because it would be too damaging to movie careers ... think of Rock Hudson.) “Que Sera Sera” becomes a song about how Doris Day couldn’t get any. Rosie Perez is ripped off because she can’t play a part without pulling the abrasive Latino stunt and foul-mouthing her way through the role.

There are also barbs aimed at entertainment industry fashions. “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Miserables is sung as an ode to the simple days before suffering become sexy and even an integral element of Broadway extravaganzas. Indeed, Pedi refers mock-mournfully to the “British invasion” and she performs a handful of numbers bemoaning the dominance of those British stars who have crossed the Atlantic. Judy Dench offers advice to Americans on how to improve their acting; Sarah Brightman admits, reluctantly, that it’s “Time to say goodbye”; and Julie Andrews is, well, Julie Andrews.

The shameless melodrama and pathos of early musicals is easily parodied – “No more artificial flowers!”, pleads Pedi – but this show goes further. It preserves no sacred sentimental cows: not even the great dames of literature are spared. Anna Karenina, the eponymous heroine from Tolstoy’s novel (which is standard reading in American educational institutions as well as in Oprah’s Book Club), famously throws herself in front of a train to escape a loveless marriage and a failed affair. This is hardly the stuff of comedy, but Pedi makes it hilarious by describing the story to the tune of “On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe”, an upbeat railway ditty that Judy Garland made famous in her 1946 film The Harvey Girls.

At the performance I attended, Pedi was still coming to terms with performing conditions in South Africa. For one thing, this means having to explain a number of the in-jokes and references on which the humour of the show is based. For another, it means adjusting to the dry highveld autumn. Pedi battled with a cough at various points, and occasionally missed a high note as a result. Commendably, however, she adjusted her routine without batting an eyelid. In fact, so well-rehearsed are her impersonations that, in the guise of Streisand or Minelli, she seemed able to convince herself that her throat was fine; and she ended triumphantly, with a bravura rendition of “I Will Survive” in ten different voices.