Falling Stars

A new Australian musical! (Not to be confused with Zombies: The Musical, which is a totally unrelated franchise.)

I will go see anything that Laura Murphy has written, after her amazing work on The Lovers and The Dismissal. Along with Yve Blake (Fangirls) and Vidya Makan (The Lucky Country), this makes it an exciting time for women writing musicals in Australia, and telling the stories they want to tell.

Zombie! The Musical, premiering at the Hayes Theatre, definitely feels like a story with something to say. Set in Sydney on the eve of the millennium, a community theatre company is preparing for opening night. And then a strange infection starts to spread, turning people into zombies...

The three main characters are women - described as "an ambitous starlet, an optimistic understudy, and an ol' hoofer (who thought she'd seen it all)" - who have to face this unexpected crisis in their different ways.


Things I love

* The banging songs.

* The '90s nostalgia. (Nokia phones! Y2K! The modem sound!)

* The in-jokes about musicals. ("If Andrew Lloyd Webber can do it...")

* The punny jokes. ("We have to find Hope!" "What if she's been infected?" "Then we have to abandon Hope!")

* The Australian jokes. ("If only we had guns to kill the zombies!" "Damn you, John Howard!" /s)

* The commentary about roles for women in musicals.

* The power of musical theatre (and friendship!) to save the world.


Things I don't love

That there is no cast recording!

It's tough being a fan of a brand new musical. You can't listen to the songs again. You can't look up the lyrics. You can't tell people, "Check this out!" because there's nowhere to point them to.

However! The Hayes Theatre is fundraising for a cast recording, so fingers crossed that it happens!


Spoilery highlights

I love that the starlet, Felicity, and the understudy, Sam, are friends, who fall out not because of any rivalry, but because they take opposing stances on how to deal with the zombies.

And I love that in the end, it's about the power of friendship! Willingness to sacrifice yourself! Unwillingness to allow another to sacrifice themselves!

But I want to talk about the song from halfway through, "Heroes and Monsters". It is soooo good. Felicity has just killed a zombie:

1) who was one of their friends, and
2) who had been hunting her and taunting her, and
3) who may or may not have been cureable.

Her friends are shocked to witness this, as they were trying to get through to the person he used to be. (Also, "You killed our only tenor!") And Felicity responds by singing about how these people are showing us who they really are, and it's the chance to rid the world of monsters. And you can see her rage and determination, and her purity of purpose, and she's absolutely compelling. I had two simultaneous feelings:

1) SLAY, QUEEN
2) ... This is a villain origin story, isn't it?

The thing is, it's such a seductive narrative. With all the injustice and cruelty in the world today, it's so tempting to think, "Magneto was right." But to decide that some people are monsters, and should be destroyed - it never goes anywhere good. When we deny someone their humanity, that takes away our own humanity too.


Anyway, here are two of the songs on YouTube:


Meaty Part
(Stefanie Jones as Felicity and Natalie Abbott as Sam)

But it's the same old story
It's the same old song
And they all taught me where I don't belong
But I'll prove them wrong




Put Up A Fight
(Nancy Denis as Trace)

Pushed past the point of no return
She gave them what they all deserve
But without the gift of telekinesis
I would have to use my fists