Dirty Dancing and its multi-platinum soundtrack left a pervasive imprint on popular culture, which remains evident today. In virtue of the strong attachment many viewers developed for the film, you might say its best left untouched. However, an Australian-made musical adaptation was launched in 2004, and it’s gone on to be an international touring sensation. Now, over a decade on from its inception, Dirty Dancing has returned to Melbourne. In the role of Johnny Castle is Kurt Phelan, who explains what audiences can gain from seeing it in the flesh.
“If you watch a kid meet Mickey Mouse or go to a museum and see a robot dinosaur, it’s like that, but for adults,” he says. “It’s live and it’s in front of you and it’s real. Also, the dancing and the band and the music is just next level. The dance choreography is more dynamic than it was in the film. You can feel the sweat, it’s really sexy.”
Phelan’s co-star is Kirby Burgess, who plays Johnny Castle’s dance student and love interest, Baby Houseman. Phelan’s got plenty of experience in the realm of musical theatre, but he’s never been involved in anything quite so physical.
“This show makes me so skinny, I’ve got to keep going to the gym every day,” he says. “It’s crazy. I put on a heap of size for the role because they asked me to. But then it’s the equivalent of running around with a girl in your hands for two hours every night.”
Dirty Dancing will stay in Melbourne for another two months before working through the other capital cities during the second half of the year. It’s easy to imagine how such a large of quantity of back-to-back shows could create a time-warp sensation. On the grounds of this, the actors must be wary of slipping into autopilot.
“Sometimes the show takes over and it’s like locking the car doors – you’re on the ride, you can’t out no matter what,” Phelan says. “But I must admit, sometimes I’m standing on stage and something will happen and I’m thinking ‘Why isn’t Kirby speaking?’ and then it hits me I should be speaking. She’s one of those bloody girls who’s awesome and hot and good at what she does and she never does anything wrong. And I’m the guy that just does things wrong,” he laughs.
Bringing an iconic film to the stage – especially one that features several key moments imprinted in people’s minds – poses a conundrum regarding whether it’s best to imitate the original or take some liberties. “Kirby and I had a big chat in the beginning about how they made such headway and they were so famous with this film because of their performances,” Phelan says. “It would be silly for us to ignore that and do our thing completely, but it would be much more foolish to copy them, because we aren’t those people. So it’s a little bit of mine and yours. I’ve been told that I dance very similar to Swayze, but then there’s lines and scenes of dialogue where I have to just be true to the character that I’m presenting. Because it’s on stage, it’s different, it’s bigger and in a film you can have close-ups, which you can’t on stage.
“I’m a big fan of Patrick Swayze and have been since I was a kid,” he adds. “There’s a few key things that I love that he does in the film that I just went ‘Right I’m going to do that because it’s iconic.’”
A scan through Phelan’s career credits indicates he’s no stranger to iconic material. In the past, he’s appeared in stage productions of everything from Singing in the Rain and Saturday Night Fever to The Importance of Being Earnest and Julius Caesar. Yet, while he’s a longtime Dirty Dancing fan-boy, landing this role was entirely unexpected.
“In my own mind, I’m so far away from Johnny Castle,” he says. “Even when the audition brief came out, I said to my agent ‘I don’t think I’m right for the show, I’ll let it go.’ It was actually the company that came back and said ‘Hey, we think you’d be perfect.’ No one ever thinks they’re a sexy, leather jacket-wearing womaniser. I’m a geek at heart and I never expected that I would be cast in this role. But I just love it.
“In the second week of rehearsal, we were doing a bedroom scene and the director was like ‘Don’t try to act sexy. We hired you because of who you are,’” he adds. “My sister came to see it on opening night. We’re really close, but she was like ‘I didn’t even recognise you up on stage. I just watched this other person and I kept having to remind myself. I was feeling things and I was like, no that’s my brother, don’t think those things.’”
Yep. Dirty.
BY AUGUSTUS WELBY
