Theatre Review: Annie

Annie                      

Book by Thomas Meehan

Music by Charles Strouse

Lyrics by Martin Charlin

Director Karen Johnson Mortimer

Choreographer Mitchell Woodcock

Photo credit Daniel Boud

Capitol Theatre

Reviewed by Ron Lee, CSP, MAICD

It’s New York City, 1933, and eleven-year-old Annie is in an orphanage with other young girls. Six-year-old Molly wakes up from a bad dream and Annie comforts her, taking on a maternal role and tries to give all of the girls some hope.

Annie decides to escape to find her parents but is caught by Miss Hannigan, the cruel keeper of the orphanage. To punish Annie's behaviour, she forces the girls to clean, and they lament the terrible conditions in the song, It’s a Hard Knock Life. 

Annie then escapes with the laundry when it is taken out but is captured and returned to the orphanage just as billionaire Oliver Warbucks’ secretary, Grace Farrell (Amanda Lea Lavergne), calls in with the intention of inviting an orphan to spend two weeks over Christmas at the Warbucks mansion. Grace takes a liking to Annie, and the adventure begins and incorporates a devious, greed-driven plan by Miss Hannigan’s brother, Rooster (Keanu Gonzalez) and his partner Lily (Mackenzie Dunn).

On the opening night I was delighted that, before the curtains parted, the dedication was to the original 1978 Australian production that included Jill Perryman, Nancye Hayes, Anne Grigg and the immortal Hayes Gordon. After seeing that production, I wondered if any subsequent version could possibly equal it. That dedication was a truly deserving and appropriate gesture.

A certainty in Australian musical theatre is that you can rely on Anthony Warlow to turn in first class performances, and he does as Oliver Warbucks. Warlow is unfaultable. 

Debora Krizak would have been perfectly cast as Warbuck's goody-goody secretary, but she relished being the perpetually inebriated, sadistically inclined Miss Hannigan. It’s a far more meaty role. Apart from being hugely talented, Krizak is versatile. I have seen her as a Jessica Rabbit type, she does an outstanding Karen Carpenter tribute show, and unless I'm mistaken, she's appearing as an ordinary suburban woman in a TVC for an insurance company. 

Greg Page has traded his yellow Wiggles skivvy for a wheelchair to play President Franklin D. Roosevelt but for a split second he did that finger thing that some people don't find annoying, and Warlow momentarily struck an obvious Jack Benny pose. That was in the radio scene where there was a Foley artist and a ventriloquist. I get that you might have vent act if there’s a studio audience but why was it the dummy that was talking into the microphone?

In line with what we called "child welfare", Child Safety states that children's roles need to be covered by several performers. In this production there are four Annies, and we were fortunate to see Dakota Chanel perform superbly in the role. Her stage presence and talent make her the perfect Annie. For the sake of future audiences, I hope that the other Annies are just as good. 

It's been a long time since very young performers sounded like chipmunks, and the seven girls on opening night were excellent. Whenever they were on stage singing, the applause was constant, and it lifted when they performed The Rockettes routine.

Also pulling focus was Sandy the dog who elicited audience responses every time that he appeared. So the adult cast had to work with children AND animals and they worked beautifully together.

The scenery changes that are effected by using projections on the cyclorama and downstage screen seem to pay homage to Harold Gray’s Little Orphan Annie comic strip that inspired the musical, and the set changes are seamless.

I thoroughly enjoyed and recommend this production of Annie as long as you don't mind leaving the theatre singing or humming, "Tomorrow! Tomorrow! I love ya tomorrow!..."