Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown review – a gorgeous take on a flawed musical

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is one of those films you really should have on your bucket list. Pedro Almodóvar's 1988 Spanish farce (currently streaming on SBS on Demand) follows actress Pepa, whose lover Iván has broken up with her over answering machine, and her long day trying to get in touch with him. Along the way, she collides with Iván's ex-wife, a young couple who turn out to also be connected to him, and her best friend Candela. Men are ruining everyone's day. It's funny, clever and dark.
The musical adaptation, written by Jeffrey Lane (best known for his musical adaptation of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) with music and lyrics by David Yazbek (also Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and more recently the freshly Tony-nominated Dead Outlaw) premiered on Broadway 15 years ago – to middling (at best) reviews. Both its New York and West End seasons were cut short due to poor sales.
So why is this musical getting a fresh run in Australia? Three words: director Alexander Berlage. He's the perfect fit for a show that needs to be stylish down to its bones – and needs a new vision. Berlage started out on the experimental side of indie theatre before he found his way to musicals (often as a lighting designer as well as director), immediately committing to theatrical rigour, camp and playful subversion. His first outing at the Hayes, Cry-Baby the Musical (based on the John Waters film) restored an anarchic spirit to a show that had turned saccharine on Broadway; the follow-up, a deliciously complex and sleek staging of American Psycho, was another success in finding the right tone for a show that had flopped in New York.
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Who better, then, to take on Almodóvar's camp farce and make it pop?
And this production really does pop: Hailley Hunt's set – Pepa's apartment – is a dream to look at, and cleverly evokes all of Madrid through just a few set pieces. It's red curtain-ringed and deliciously decorated, and when Phoebe Pilcher's lighting drenches the space in reds and blues, it's gorgeous.
Amy Hack (who most recently starred in Yentl in Melbourne and Sydney) is glorious as Pepa: it's a deeply lived-in, individuated performance that takes inspiration from, but does not copy, the film. This is a character in crisis, but also comic and genuinely complex – the key is in the title, this woman is on the verge of a breakdown – and Hack gives a gorgeously risky and boldly funny performance that will be one of the year's best.
Together, Berlage and Hack are doing great, inventive work (there are delightful staging choices, especially small moments of character and tableau detail, that elevate scenes). It's genuinely a pleasure to watch.
There are, however, two big problems. The first, which is fixable, is the sound design and engineering: on opening night, it was often difficult to make out the lyrics. Musicals reveal key plot and character information in songs, from facts and exposition all the way to moments of revelation, so if we can't hear it, we're lost.
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The second is that it's just not a very good musical. Yazbek's Spanish-styled score sounds bright but isn't varied enough to have us leaning in and listening closely, especially when it's already hard to hear. The show has a male narrator (Aaron Robuck, playing the taxi driver who Pepa encounters several times in the film) who feels extraneous to the narrative.
More broadly, the book is a mess. When taking a farce from film to stage, you need to recalibrate your narrative. In a musical, everything is already heightened, so you need to establish an emotional reality in your farce for it to have a sense of stakes. Lane and Yazbeck's musical saves the bulk of stripped-back emotional realness for the second act, but it's too late by then to introduce them – we've been dialled up to 11 since the first scene.
Berlage does his best to mitigate this – and the ending is strikingly, surprisingly, moving – but he can't change the book or the score, which do not rise to the greatness of Berlage, Hack or the original film.
So, should you see it? If you love musicals and want to see a performer at the height of her powers, yes. Hack is well worth the trip, and you deserve a treat. Otherwise, give the film a try.
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is at Hayes theatre, Darlinghurst, until 8 June.

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