Singer-songwriter Paul Kelly has been honoured for a lifetime of music-making and community activism at the 2015 Helpmann awards, in a glitzy ceremony at Sydney’s Capitol theatre that hit some surprisingly political notes.
Accepting the JC Williamson award, the Helpmanns’ highest honour, Kelly paid tribute to the many individuals who had supported his 35-year career. “There are quite a few people here tonight who have taken many of those steps with me,” he said in an emotional speech. “I hope we can take a whole lot more together.”
Cate Blanchett and Adam Garcia were among those presenting at Australia’s largest annual performing arts awards where the big winners were Cameron Mackintosh’s rebooted production of Les Misérables, Brisbane Baroque’s staging of Handel’s Faramondo, and new Australian children’s opera The Rabbits, a co-production by Opera Australia, Barking Gecko theatre and the West Australia Opera, which premiered at the 2015 Perth festival.
The ceremony opened with a medley from Les Misérables – currently playing at the Capitol – whose awards included best actor for Simon Gleeson, best supporting actress for Kerrie Anne Greenland, and the night’s final award of best musical.
The Rabbits, adapted by Kate Miller-Heidke, Iain Grandage and Lally Katz from Shaun Tan and John Marsden’s popular picture book, took best new Australian work, best children’s work, best score and best costuming. Reviewing the show in Perth, Guardian’s Van Badham gave it five stars, calling it “an unambiguous emotional experience that I can only compare to a walloping”.
Faramondo picked up best opera, best female, supporting female and supporting male singers for Brisbane Baroque, with the team praising Queensland’s “forward-thinking state government” in their acceptance speech.
It wasn’t the only political aside of the night. Taking best scenic design for State Theatre Company and Adelaide Festival Centre’s Little Bird, designer Geoff Cobham said the show was an example of “the kind of risk that leads to excellence”, a clear reference to arts minister George Brandis’ new national fund for excellence in the arts, to which some sections of the arts community are vocally opposed. His comments were loudly applauded by the audience.
Meanwhile, Jonathan Holloway – departing director of the Perth festival and soon to take up the mantle at Melbourne festival – accepted a special award for The Giants, crediting the event’s success to “fantastic funding of artists” over many years and “a city that realised the transformative nature of the arts”.
Sydney Dance Company swept the dance categories picking up best choreography and best dance work for Frame of Mind by artistic director Rafael Bonachela and best male and female dance performance by Cass Mortimer Eipper and Chloe Leong for William Forsythe’s Quintett.
There were awards for John Bell (best supporting actor) in his final season as director of Bell Shakespeare, as well as Hugo Weaving (best actor for Endgame) and Kip Williams (best director for Suddenly Last Summer) of Sydney Theatre Company. But in Andrew Upton’s last year as artistic director, three of the company’s productions were beaten out in the best play category (presented by his wife Cate Blanchett) by The Glass Menagerie at Belvoir, directed by Eamon Flack.
Judith Lucy, picking up her award for best comedy performance, consoled her male category mates – “you’re men, you’ll bounce back” – while Pamela Rabe, named best actress in a play for The Glass Menagerie, challenged a playwright to write a play with 20 new roles for women over the age of 35.
Awards host Todd McKenney, best known as a judge on Channel 7’s Dancing with the Stars, delighted the audience mid-show by changing out of his tux and into a floor-length sequinned gown on stage to perform I Am What I Am, from La Cage Aux Folles, but not before delivering a very personal account of his coming of age as a gay man. He credited the unwavering support of his single mother, who made a cameo in the skit, presenting McKenney with his bouffant wig.
