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Rufus Wainwright + Martha Wainwright, Kate & Anna McGarrigle Dunstan Playhouse, Festival Theatre, Sat 4 Feb Following on from three critically acclaimed and sold-out Leonard Cohen tribute shows at last month's Sydney Festival, we can only be thankful for an ongoing tour by members of the McGarrigle/Wainwright dynasty. And like the Everly and Wilson brothers there is something intrinsically harmonic, truly unique and wonderfully adventurous when they sing together; this was immediately obvious from the opening Heart Like A Wheel which featured all four vocalists - Kate and Anna as well as offspring Martha and the crown prince, Rufus. In a generous and eclectic programme that not only featured not their own compositions, the appreciative capacity audience were treated to songs by fellow Montreal troubadour Leonard Cohen (the rabbinical Who By Fire), Harold Arlen, French chanteuse Barbara and even a four part a capella take on Stephen Foster's Hard Times. However, as marvelous as the McGarrigles and Martha often were (her detour via the boulevards opens a whole vista of possibilities as an interpreter of Brel, Piaf and Gainsbourg) there is little doubt that Rufus was the star of the show Overflowing with talent, Wainwright bounced on and off stage; prodigiously confident and gifted, flicking his hair out of his eyes, and resplendent in a seersucker suit and red scarf, and looking for all the world like a fey, late 'sixties Jagger. Even if his audience is new to his seemingly endless gifts as a singer, Rufus has no doubts at all about his abilities. Before turning to the standard Over The Rainbow he gave the audience a vivid picture of a prepubescent boy, playing dress-ups in mother's clothes and entertaining the family with Judy Garland numbers. Although the audience reacted strongly to classics by the McGarrigles, it was Wainwright who truly amazed with his 'cello-like register, effortless and exquisitely used vibrato and wide range. Those who were familiar to his albums were treated to Poses, Cigarettes And Chocolate Milk and the sly Gay Messiah which firmly cast him as the last great prophet: a sort of John the Baptist sent to rail against the cultural and socially exclusive desert of Bush's America. Let's just hope that the favourable audience reaction leads to a prompt return to our shores by this prodigiously gifted artist.  |
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