Review: The Judy Monologues (Fringe)

by Zoë Erwin-Longstaff

The Judy Monologues is a piece of verbatim theatre, the source of which is the recordings Ms Garland made for a never-completed autobiography before her death at 47, by drug overdose, in 1969. 

The show’s main attraction is Kimberly Roberts, whose likeness to Judy at the end of her life is uncanny.  Ms. Roberts captures her glamour and fragility as she projects the star’s twitchy backstage mannerisms.  The great disappointment of the show is that Roberts is never allowed to speak.  Rather she primps and flounces silently around the stage, which is set up as a dressing room, at different,  seemingly random intervals.  

Instead, the show is what appears to be three gay men’s homage to the great icon. Darren Stewart-Jones, Phillip Cairns, and Michael Hughes all sit at the back of the stage in matching spangled vests, all taking turns venting Judy’s frustrations, yearnings and pitiable entanglements with husbands, gossip columnists and court authorities.  The beginning of the piece sparks interest as it explores the limitations of the recording device and the difficulty of creating a coherent narrative out of a sensationalized career.  However this theme is quickly abandoned and instead we get monotonous rants with limited variation on the theme of being misunderstood, loving your children, and the price of fame.  

It is hard to say exactly where this show goes wrong.  The clunky lighting transitions and audio screw-ups were barely noticeable compared to the lacklustre performances; the actors, Roberts excepted, are stiff, hokey and unconvincing.  But then one wonders whether anyone short of Judy herself could captivate an audience with such a maudlin, clichéd script.  The show comes off as self-indulgent, and offers us no new perspective on the star or her harrowing life.  The one perk of seeing it is that, sprinkled throughout, are some great  technicolor clips that inspired me to go home and dust off my VHS of Easter Parade. 

Tickets

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