Festival review: Double Edge’s Flames Over New Jersey; Underbelly (venue 61)

By david Pollock
Published on 17/08/2012 16:49

“It DON’T mean a thing of it ain’t got that swing,” runs the opening song here, and this spirited musical play (but not a musical) from Double Edge has it in abundance.

Set in a grimy speakeasy in a small American city as the prohibition era is coming to an end, this sweaty, arched cave nails the ambience dead on. The noise and bustle all around us is perfectly achieved, with the actors and the eight-piece jazz band who are an integral part of the show milling around making waiterly small-talk with audience members.

The music is hot, but the theatre is merely pretty good. The cast is young, but the scenario is well-drawn: the Peacock is a jumping joint coming to the end of its natural life and everybody – the stressed-out manager, the mob boss who owns it, the cop on the take and the genteel English crew captain – feel not so much like it’s the last days if Rome as that the world’s gears are slowly grinding away from them.

Sure, the booze might poison you, but this 12-year-old party’s preferable to what’s going on in Europe. In isolation many scenes create a sharp and amusing sense of place, but when the play ends abruptly it’s as if the final act has been cut to fit the bill.

Rating: * * *

Until tomorrow. Today 6:20pm.