By Jade Smith
Floor Work’s JAFFY is an original musical—written by An Dang and John Sharp, directed by Lu Ijuin Lethbridge, assisted by Stephanie Lee, and co-produced by An Dang and Isolde Kieni-Judd—following main character My (Allanah Hessey) through the trials and tribulations of her first year at The University of Melbourne. More specifically, as she falls in love with and starts dating the grungy third year DJ “Petey” (Ethan McCarthy), a crude, eshay type on whom My had a crush in high school. As the marketing material disclosed from the get-go, the plot twist lies in the fact that Petey moonlights as a Myki inspector, with his and My’s relationship falling apart when he issues her a fine on her way home from uni.
JAFFY is self-indulgent, dropping constant references to UniMelb Love Letters, YahYahs, Arts West, and other staples of University of Melbourne student culture. While this self-indulgence means that JAFFY’s audience is perhaps more niche than many of the original works that hit the UniMelb stage, it’s not a bad thing by any stretch. The self-indulgence is endearing. It’s cute. For those who fall within this audience niche, it’s a nice wink-and-nudge.
As a piece of emergent musical theatre, JAFFY was triumphantly fun. The song writing was skilful, catchy, and remarkably clever at times, featuring some truly phenomenal wordplay. The music was—while rather standard for the musical theatre genre and not breaking any boundaries—highly competent and well-executed. The three-piece band, with Julian Smith Gard on the piano, Lili Kennedy on the violin and Justin Ho on the drums, held their own very well, with large amounts of credit given here to musical director John Sharp.
The two performers both did a wonderful job. Hessey’s vocal performance was incredible, although hard to hear at times, particularly during quieter moments and when she hit falsetto notes. This was no doubt a difficult conundrum for sound designer Sebastian Bardouille-Thompson, as mics would have likely felt like overkill for a solid eighty percent of the show, given its small scale. However, it was nonetheless disappointing that Hessey’s vocals became drowned out by the band. Despite the sound issues, her performance shone, nailing the giddy excitement of heading to Uni for the first time, the pathos of heartbreak, and the disgust at the distinct smell of the YahYah’s dancefloor.
McCarthy doubled as DJ Petey and My’s Uni friend Steffan. He hardly sung, meaning that Hessey rather unilaterally carried the musical aspects of the show. When he did sing, his vocals were notably weaker than Hessey’s, and indeed I think he would have struggled to match My had more songs been assigned. Where McCarthy’s vocals lacked, however, the rest of his performance more than made up for it. Incredibly convincing in both roles, McCarthy succeeded as both the comedically exaggerated Petey and the more down to earth, naturalistic Steffan. To the latter role he brought a level of authenticity that made me question whether McCarthy is a very, very good actor, or whether he was just playing himself. Or, perhaps, it was a mix of the two.
The technical aspects of this show were minimalist but did what they needed to do. Perhaps this is a gripe more with the default show state of the new Guild Theatre than the production design of JAFFY, but I found the use of cyc lighting distracting and felt that it made the low-budget set seem more underwhelming than it otherwise would have. It was flashy in a way that felt disjointed from the small scale of this production. Similarly, while formatting the closed captioning variously as UniMelb Love Letters, tram maps and more was certainly a fun feature, it was distracting, with the screen being far too bright and the changing backgrounds drawing the eye in a way that detracted from the excellent performances happening on stage. Additionally, it was also far harder to read than standard closed captioning, raising the question of whether an accessibility measure is the place to be having fun.
Apart from these two aspects, the production design was commendably sufficient. The use of a clothing rack as the pole you hold on to on the roof of a tram as a very creative way to bring this setting to life. The costuming was good, with My’s UniMelb hoodie a nice touch. The costume design Maya Anderson did a fantastic job delineating the characters of Steffan and Petey—at no point was I confused about who McCarthy was playing.
The biggest let down of this show was its marketing. To be quite frank, if I hadn’t been reviewing JAFFY I doubt I would have gone to see it, despite the fact that I love both musical theatre and original works. The main poster feels so hastily and lazily constructed that it (falsely) led me to expect a musical that was equally sloppy. It’s a shame that the team could not source a high-definition photo of the leads or choose fonts that felt less juvenile. If childish, naïve and fun was the aesthetic styling they were going for, that makes sense, given the spirit of the show. However, the poster didn’t reach that mark, and I’m concerned that many potential audience members turned away because of the poor marketing design.
Overall, JAFFY was an incredibly impressive production, and I hope that the team behind it go on to create more works of original musical theatre. There’s some real talent behind this show: it was fun, it was cute, and it was executed well. Congratulations to the cast and crew of JAFFY for a good time and keep and please eye out for tram inspectors on your way home. Getting a fine now would be a horrible twist of irony.
Floor Work’s original production JAFFY ran September 1st to 3rd at the new Guild Theatre.
Jade Smith (she/her) is an arts manager, theatre maker, and writer loyally based in the inner north of Naarm/Melbourne. As well as The Dialog, her reviews can be found at Prompt Side Melbourne.
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