Review: Breat Wishes

(Bien-Etre Productions | Seymour Centre, Chippendale, Sydney | Until 2 May — see left for details of touring schedule)

Given the subject matter’s propensity for drawing puns, Breast Wishes could easily have been corny, perhaps even have descended into the smutty and tacky. Alternatively, given that it was written at least partly as a vehicle for breast-cancer awareness, it could have verged on the preaching.

Thankfully, it doesn’t go anywhere near those possibilities. The writing, musical, production and acting teams are to be congratulated for presenting theatre that has delightful humour, absolute veracity and genuine compassion.

The seed for Breast Wishes may have been the encounter of Amanda Looby (sister of co-producer and actor Anne Looby) with breast cancer, but the concept obviously and quickly grew into something much more voluptuous, as noted by the producers in the show’s lavishly produced program:

“We felt compelled and inspired to make a difference not only to Amanda but to the thousands of women — friends, mums, grandmothers, sisters, cousins — and men who are affected by this disease. Created in order to raise funds and awareness for the National Breast Cancer Foundation, Breast Wishes is most importantly a celebration of breasts and those who support them!”

The story is told through mother Helen (Valerie Bader, who also plays the enthusiastic bra-fitter Irene), her daughters Carol (Anne Looby) and Lyn (Chelsea Plumley), and their younger cousin Sal (Gretel Scarlett) ... and a range of male figures all played with great aplomb by David Harris.

The humour is there right from the opening salvo, when the four women line up to bash out Let’s Not Talk About ... Vaginas, and it continues, along, of course, with appropriate punning, right through to a reprise of the song at the finish, joined this time by Harris.

There’s the teen-aged, micro-boobed Carol being rejected in the movie theatre when her boyfriend finds there’s nothing to feel.

There’s the very amply endowed Lyn talking about how her breasts seem to hold conversations — with nearby males — that she has no part in, and how they seem to define a much more significant part of her personality than she’d like.

There’s the adult Carol feeling the rejection and failure of not being able to breast feed.

There’s Helen talking about the joy of getting her breasts back after child-feeding.

More light-heartedly, there’s Sal being fitted by the effervescent Irene with a peep-hole bra to add excitement for her husband on their first anniversary.

Most poignantly, there’s Lyn facing the prospect of a double mastectomy, and, quite irrationally, rejecting her husband’s assurance that it won’t make any difference to him. “Don’t you like my breasts then?” It’s one of those “have you stopped beating your wife?” questions that can’t be satisfactorily answered in either the positive or negative.

And there’s that eye-watering prospect for all males: “I’d love to see how far his penis extends if it was put into a mammogram machine.” Or words to that effect.

This is a wonderful feel-good piece of theatre that provokes as well as entertains. It very much lives up to its subtitle of being “an uplifting musical”, and should be high on the must-see list of all thinking females and males.

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