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Bugs Bunny On Broadway Conducted by George Daugherty Festival Theatre, Friday 18 Feb Finally the 'Bugs Bunny On Broadway' experience arrived in Adelaide, and a packed Festival Theatre boasted as broad a cross-section of society as you could imagine. Creator and conductor George Daugherty - who repeatedly described the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra as 'spectacular' - has been touring the production for 16 years now and the show is as slick as that suggests. Both Acts 1 and 2 started with the ASO playing pieces (by Wagner and Von Stuppe respectively) before the vision was brought into the show, projected on a screen over the orchestra. The almost tangible joy in the audience the first time the ASO played 'The Merrie Melodies Theme' was unexpectedly moving, and the cartoons themselves were all entirely appropriate for the evening. The output of the Warner Bros studios from the 1940's to 60's is the best television the world has ever seen - and quite possibly will ever see. These seven-minute cartoons are simply timeless. Clever, musical, and very funny, the characters created are astoundingly well rounded. 'Bugs Bunny On Broadway' includes the classics 'Baton Bunny', 'One Froggy Evening', 'The Rabbit Of Seville' and more. The climax of the night is 'What's Opera, Doc?' the seminal version of Wagner's Ring Cycle starring Bugs and Elmer Fudd. As Daugherty said, how many people hear a little voice singing 'Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit' upon hearing Wagner's opera? A bonus in the program is 'A Salute To Chuck Jones', the man who animated and directed so many of these cartoons. The late Jones always intended his creations to be seen on the big screen, for audiences to come together and laugh en masse. In this salute some of the greatest moments flashed before us: Pepe Le Pew calmly bounding after his sweetheart, Daffy Duck as Robin Hood, and a personal favourite: Bugs and the bull in 'Bully For Bugs', with the ASO playing the 'Mexican Hat Dance'. And how the audience laughed. 'Bugs Bunny On Broadway' is a wonderful celebration of the animation, the humour and the music that a freak group of brilliant minds created over a 30 year period. Reverent but light-hearted, it's truly an event for everyone - and in a way makes up for the merciless commercialisation of these characters over the past decade or so. In true Looney Toons fashion, there's only one way to describe the man behind the night. George Daugherty. Super Genius.  |
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