Stepping Out

Stepping Out sees a set of dancers being put through their paces, and, on the way, reveals a little about the background of each.  It takes place in a mixed-ability tap dancing class, and we learn about the characters through their interaction, rather than the solo confessional approach taken by the big stage equivalent, A Chorus Line.  I find it vaguely disappointing that none of the individual story lines gets resolved - but then that’s part of the point, the dancing is in the foreground, with real life, with all its unresolved complexity, in the background.

An ensemble piece with good performances from the whole cast, bringing out the varied characters and different reasons for coming to the class.  The members are supposed to bring different levels of ability to the class, thus we had Shannon Fisher, who is an accomplished dancer, making an excellent job of demonstrating bad timing through playing Sylvia who doesn’t know her left from her right.  The performances ranged from the deliberately understated (Tony Haberfield, playing the very reserved Geoffrey, the only man in the group) to the deliberately over-the-top (Maggie Soares, hamming-it-up wonderfully as the cantankerous, incompetent pianist, Mrs Fraser).  If Maggie Soares drew the lion’s share of the laughs, it was Sarah Haberfield who drew the collective gasps of “did she really say that” as the obsessive and totally tactless Vera.  Lucy Kelleher was particularly affecting as the nervy, brittle Andy, coming to the class to do something for herself in a life spent supporting other people - and possibly to escape domestic violence.  There’s an undercurrent of a nascent romance with Geoffrey that never quite comes off, despite the audience, completely on Andy’s side, willing it to happen.

The show ends with Mavis, the class leader (choreographer Rosie Thomas) taking her students to a local showcase - and then bringing them back as a much more polished outfit the following year.  Thus after waiting for the whole evening we finally get the exhibition of tap that we’ve been waiting for.  Exit the audience with broad smiles, humming “Putting on the Ritz”.

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