Risky Lunar Love
PREVIEW BY SUNDAY FRANCIS-REISS
It’s sexy, it’s tiki, it’s sci-fi. New musical comedy Risky Lunar Love has been described as something akin to the Rocky Horror Picture Show. It’s the story of an alien invader who manipulates two arch rival science-fiction writers in a scheme destroy planet Earth. According to producer Oliver Wenn, ‘It’s quite a ludicrous show.’
Wenn is the man responsible for taking what was originally a university theatre project and staging it in Sydney with a team of enthusiasts who include an internationally acclaimed designer and choreographer. Amping up the voltage are members of notorious Sydney rock band Machine Gun Fellatio.
The project has taken on a life of it’s own, and grown into what Wenn describes as ‘a behemoth! We don’t just want to do one round of this. We want to take it to the West End.’
Wenn was part of the first production of Risky Lunar Love, written by Luke Milton and staged in 2002 in Western Australia. From its humble beginnings the show was a clear winner: ‘everybody loved it.’ Personally, Wenn recalls it as ‘one of the best projects I’d ever been involved in.’ After recently graduating from NIDA and looking for new projects, Wenn thought once again of Risky Lunar Love. ‘It was always in the back of my mind.’
He first enlisted John Sheedy, an awarded and adventurous young director whom he worked with at NIDA. For Sheedy, the far-out script had instant appeal, and a brain flash came for a suitably unconventional music director, Ross Johnston from Machine Gun Fellatio.
‘Ross is a direct friend of John’s,’ Wenn explains. ‘As soon as John saw it he said, Machine Gun Fellatio’s gotta be involved in this!’
The music, originally penned by then-student Brent Hill, became a collaborative effort between Johnston and Hill, who sat down and rewrote seventeen of the eighteen tracks. The score will be performed live by an ensemble of keys, sax, marimba, bass guitar, lead guitar and drums.
Of Machine Gun Fellatio’s participation, Wenn says ‘they’ve really lifted it to another level.’
Other notable names involved include choreographer John O’Connell, who worked on Baz Luhrman’s Moulin Rouge, and designer Ggypsy Taylor, whose work includes Chronicles of Narnia and Lurhman’s Australia.
The show will be performed at the Carriageworks, and cabaret-style seating means that audiences will be able to enjoy the insanity with drinks and canapés.
Risky Lunar Love
September 15 – October 4
Carriageworks Bay 20 Theatre
Tickets: table (including food and wine service) $95 per head (min two persons), group of 4 $365, group of 8 $720, www.ticketmaster.com.au or 1300 723 038
