Following its Melbourne Theatre Company debut in 2023, comedian Tom Gleisner’s Bloom has now landed on Sydney Theatre Company’s (STC) Roslyn Packer Theatre stage. His uproarious debut musical comedy is set in an aged care home complete with wheelchair chorus line and mobility scooter mayhem.
At some point, everyone will need to interact with nursing homes or aged residential care. Much of the industry is underfunded, understaffed and in crisis. Like its colourful protagonist, Rose (a feisty Evelyn Krape), Bloom the musical is a disrupter that challenges the problems in many aged care facilities that most of us tend to ignore unless we’re personally affected.
Director Dean Bryant’s production breaks the fourth wall to implicate and energise the audience directly. It prods us with proverbial walking sticks to pay attention and figuratively leads us by the hand to do something about it.
The façade of Pine Grove Aged Care establishes the sterility and cost-cutting of a residential facility through its clinical-looking set, artificial lighting and pale institutional colours. Once inside, we meet a microcosm of the inhabitants. While not quite caricatures, they are ‘types’. Most memorable are Maria Mercedes as Betty, a light-fingered hoarder on a motorised scooter who is quietly pining over a son who doesn’t visit, John O’May, who delivers scene-stealing theatrical ripostes as Roland, and John Waters as Doug, a self-protective 82-year-old who transforms jokes that could look lame on paper into comic gold. Jackie Rees is the artistic Lesley and Eddie Muliaumaseali’i plays multiple roles, including that of silent Sal.
Rose, the affirming yet blunt new heart of the group, longs to escape into the sun. She teaches the importance of supporting others by “being here”.
The staff are led by the terrifying Mrs MacIntyre, performed by Christie Whelan Brown with a delectable blend of comical condescension and menace. She shows hilarious physicality, particularly when she almost falls over herself to waylay and charm the facility inspector. Her role embodies the worst of aged care with its insistence on cost-cutting by employing unqualified staff, serving cheap, bland food, cancelling outings and covering up the truth.
Much of the plot centres around Sloan Sudiro’s Finn. He is an underachieving university student who takes the job at Pine Grove because of its free accommodation. He is lazy yet learns to step up, care for the residents and, after Rose’s scolding, even engage in reciprocal conversations.
Before he is taken to task, Sudiro inhabits Finn as a pliant lightweight of average musical talent. His sparring partner and growing romantic interest is compassionate, vital Ruby, played by Vidya Makan, who “doesn’t just care for the residents but cares about them”. Christina O’Neill, as experienced staff worker Gloria, shines late in the show. She sings while her heart is breaking.
It’s exciting that we are fostering original Australian musicals yet, musically, Bloom is no Muriel’s Wedding in terms of songwriting, musicality or scope.
In one scene Rose critiques Finn’s playing of Chopin’s pieces for piano. She demonstrates the textured layers of top, middle and low notes that harmonise to enhance complexity. Composer Katie Weston’s songs are likeable and catchy enough, but the show doesn’t follow its own script’s advice about song layering. Although it attempts to implement the tried-and-true format of introducing song fragments early and using repeated refrain threads to familiarise the audience with its tunes, the music doesn’t build successfully to a climax.
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However, its form as a musical gives Bloom variety and makes it much more fun. Even the choreographed ‘movements’ (and we can’t expect too much dancing from elderly characters), such as the wheelchair-led chorus line and toilet-plunger baton-twirling parody, add to the bright spirit.
The best lines are spoken rather than sung. One-liners about early dinnertimes, beauticians not being magicians and residents without teeth who are ‘accidentally’ described as ‘inmates’ are fast-flowing and prolific.
In some ways, Bloom is ‘modest’ musical theatre, yet it is more real than a typical musical. While some of the cast members are stronger comedians than singers, the show’s imperfections increase its authenticity. Their choir is like a real aged home choir. The characters even wear silly homemade flower costumes to perform their concert piece, which, oddly, is accompanied by cheesy, childlike actions.
Although the story is underpinned by pain and pathos, the cast share their infectious joy with the audience. Bloom is much greater than the sum of its parts. As Rose says: “music is a gift to share”.
Bloom is a gift. Few shows elicit laugh after laugh like it does. ‘Laughter is the best medicine’ is a cliché, but there can be truth in clichés: humour is often the best way to deliver an unpalatable message. Leadership by example is needed to nurture positive intergenerational relationships and to care for our ageing population with respect and love. What could be better than modelling kindness, as Bloom does, in such a big-hearted, feel-good way?
Sydney Theatre Company presents Bloom
Music by Katie Weston
Book and Lyrics by Tom Gleisner
Director: Dean Bryant
Music Director: Lucy Bermingham
Choreographer: Andrew Hallsworth
Set Designer: Dann Barber
Costume Designer: Charlotte Lane
Lighting Designer: Amelia Lever-Davidson
Sound Designer: Nick Walker
Associate Choreographer: Liam McIlwain
Assistant Director: Tasnim Hossain
Production Dramaturg: Dean Bryant
Dramaturgs: Matt Edgerton and Jennifer Medway
Voice and Text Coach: Matt Furlani
Orchestrator and Premiere Production Arrangements: Zara Stanton
Original Arrangements: Katie Weston and Ned Wright Smith
Cast: Evelyn Krape, Vidya Makan, Maria Mercedes, Eddie Muliaumaseali’i, John O’May, Christina O’Neill, Jackie Rees, Slone Sudiro, John Waters and Christie Whelan Browne
Band: Daniel Billing, Gen Campbell, Kali Gillen, Jenean Lee and Cameron Elliot Reid
Tickets: $75-$90
Bloom runs at Roslyn Packer Theatre, Walsh Bay, Sydney from 3 April to 11 May 2025.
