The Frogs: In Hell They Sing Show Tunes is an adaptation of the ancient play by the Greek playwright Aristophanes, with lots of singing and dancing and show tuning.
Naturally, it was quite modernised for the current time, but with significant bearings and references to the original materials. In terms of adaptation, I personally think it was a balanced adaptation that kept the essence of the original without keeping it smell and sound like old fart. By this line, you probably knew the approach I am going with in this piece. But then it is all relative to what I experienced throughout those 70 minutes run time.
If you are not used to ancient or classic plays performed in a modern way, this production from the New Theatre in Newtown, Sydney might throw you away. So, the first and foremost is to bring an open mind into the theatre. Don’t expect classic dramatic but expect a lot of dramatics. To be honest with you, it also took me a few minutes after the first scene to settled into this new surreal yet strangely familiar world the Director Alex Kendall Robson had created with his wonderful, colourful and extremely versatile (both physically and character-wise) cast.
The premise was quite straightforward – The God of Theatre wants to save the world one play at a time, so embarked on a journey to seek out the best playwright from the realm of the death to set his grand plan in motion. Under normal circumstance, this would just be it. But in this New Theatre production, nothing comes under the wraps of normality, which after the first 10 minutes, I found extremely fitting and immersive. Again, if you do not like outside of the box productions, this is not for you. But if you want a modern and over the top take of an ancient tale, this will fit right into your bill. Although this is not an 18 rated production, I do caution parents who want to bring their kids in, as there were a lot of swearing, and ‘dressing down’ and ‘physical actions’. Otherwise, you are all good to go.
The cast was spectacular and had great chemistry throughout. From the bantering to the singing and the choreography, they were energetic, funny and engaging. There were a lot of fourth wall breaking but they all came naturally. I personally love all those group numbers as that’s where you felt the energy on stage spilling over to the audience. There were also a number of modernised jokes based on the current saddening world that we are living in. I personally would like to avoid hearing the name of a certain person, but then I guess it is really hard to not have his name coming up when it comes to social satire nowadays. Among all the numbers, I particularly like the frog number and the beauty pageant like selection competition number.
One of the aspects I like about this adaptation is that every cast member got his / her moment to shine. Of course, Dionysus is the lead with his ‘nameless assistant’ as the main supporting role. However, the time to shine was shared almost equally among the pretty large cast (11), which I think was quite an accomplishment with this kind of ensemble piece. No one was forgotten and everyone got to have a chance to have fun and had fun they did.
I personally enjoyed this piece more than I expected after the first confusing few minutes and I had a great time for a Friday night outing. I sincerely hope that more people would have a chance to see it even after it wrapped its season at the New Theatre this weekend. I think this is what we need in the current social environment – having a good time while lamenting the world that’s falling apart around us.
The Frogs: In Hell They Sing Show Tunes is on at the New Theatre till 06 September 2025.
