"Good times and bum times, I seen 'em all, and my dear, I'm still here."
The line from Stephen Sondheim's Follies pithily expresses the wavering fortunes of showbusiness and could just as easily refer to Australia's annual Helpmann Awards.
Although still in its infancy, the prizegiving ceremony for the performing arts has managed to survive, perhaps even shine when the industry is booming. But there have been more bum times than good times during the past year and the Helpmanns are spread so thin - musicals, theatre, concerts, dance, opera, comedy, you name it - that it risks losing credibility.
On the gala night the Helpmann Awards - hosted by Simon Burke, directed by Wayne Harrison, broadcast by FOX8 and starring Hugh Jackman, Human Nature, Caroline O'Connor and Topol - will at least look a glittering affair. For a couple of hours it will also mask the fact the industry is not in great shape. Sure, we have talent, but where are the producers with gumption and nerve?
The past 18 months have hardly been jam-packed with unforgettable productions or stellar performances, and the piecemeal musicals sector is anything but vibrant. Things are beginning to look rosier on that score with the imminent arrival of The Adventures of Priscilla, Titanic and Peter Cousens's music theatre company Kookaburra, but there's a shrinking pool of producers and too few job opportunities and prospects to sustain let alone keep our talent on home soil. Chloe Dallimore, who won a Helpmann last year for her performance in The Producers, plans to make New York her home next year. Many others, not just actors and singers but directors as well, are in a similar boat. Gale Edwards, another Helpmann Award winner and one of our most lauded theatre directors (The Boy from Oz, Buried Child, Sweeney Todd and Festen, to name a few), expects to have a lean CV in the next year or so given the industry's patchy state of play.
The Helpmann Awards celebrate talent in several genres but the organisers, Live Performance Australia, thrust musicals and concerts - the realm of commercial entrepreneurs on the whole - to the fore. Not unreasonably if you want to make something look exciting and increase the showbiz quotient for the cameras, it's the guys and dolls of music theatre who appear sexier and instantly appealing. Yet what makes the awards highly desirable and worth preserving is the acknowledgement they give to the many actors and practitioners who, year after year, hone their craft to offer exemplary work.
However, the producer-led nominations and the complex voting system make it hard to get the balance right. Not a year goes by without glaring oversights, anomalies, startling wins or odd-bedfellow groupings. Some fields struggle to come up with enough names, while entire productions such as last year's Dirty Dancing, a huge hit for the ever-resilient producer Kevin Jacobsen, wasn't even a blip on the Helpmann radar: this an Australian-made show of a popular American film that's about to strike it big on London's West End. The irony will be if it snares a couple of Olivier Awards next year.
There is also the pressure to not make the nominations from Perth, Adelaide and to a lesser extent Brisbane appear token. Only trouble is that there's no escaping that Sydney and Melbourne are where most of the artists live and work, and where the bulk of homegrown touring product is made.
But back to the odd-bedfellows department. This year Paul Capsis, who starred in the dark cabaret Boulevard Delirium, directed by Barrie Kosky, finds himself in competition with Delta Goodrem, Human Nature and The Go-Betweens for best performance in an Australian contemporary concert. Perhaps some things are better left to the Arias.
There is also the challenge of not wanting the Helpmanns - named after the flamboyant man of the stage Sir Robert Helpmann - to appear parochial and to show that our talent can go head-to-head with the best in the business, be it London, New York or Paris. And so the honours for best play and best director take account of Ariane Mnouchkine and her company Theatre du Soleil's extraordinary epic Le Dernier Caravanserail, presented at last year's Melbourne Festival. It was one of the genuine highlights of last year's performing arts calendar - a topical, gutsy, humane and boldly theatrical work that should probably win.
The best play category is tricky. Also up for a gong is Michael Gow's Away, a searching and important work in the history of our theatre that strikes an immediate chord with Australian audiences. The very essence and nature of Away, which is enjoying a 20th-anniversary tour, would make it an ideal Helpmann winner. Also competing are Edward Albee's provocative The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? and David Hare's political Stuff Happens. (Cheek by Jowl's director, Declan Donnellan, secured a nomination for Twelfth Night but the production, one of the best at this year's Sydney Festival, was snubbed.) Hare's timely and illuminating play, directed by Neil Armfield and presented in Sydney and Melbourne, stands a good chance of winning.
The same issue of local fighter versus foreign contender is being thrashed out for the best musical prize.
In one corner, with a fiercely loyal cheer squad behind it, is Dusty. It has scored nominations for best female performer (Tamsin Carroll), best supporting performer (Deni Hines, Alexis Fishman), best director (Stuart Maunder) and best designer (Roger Kirk). Also in the fight is the plucky and popular hit Menopause the Musical, the old stager Fiddler on the Roof, starring Topol - yes, he's nominated! - and the modest yet immensely likeable show The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. It is yet to be seen in Sydney but was a sellout for the Melbourne Theatre Company. Spelling Bee, staged by Simon Phillips, was impeccably cast with Marina Prior, Tyler Coppin, Christen O'Leary, Bert Labonte, David Campbell and a brilliant Magda Szubanski. They are all individually nominated.
The favourite is Dusty but it may miss out. It has terrific songs and a big belting performance by Carroll but it's also saddled with a mediocre script. It's less a musical than a bio-concert deliriously mixing fantasy, fact and lame gags. In terms of writing, originality and wit, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is superior but that doesn't guarantee it the top prize.
As to who will win best female actor in a musical it's surely down to the wire between Carroll and Szubanski. Maybe they should toss a coin but the audiences tend to love performers masquerading as true-life divas or showmen. David Campbell is a shoe-in for best male actor in a musical for his role as Joe Gillis in Sunset Boulevard for the Production Company.
For the first time comedy gets a look-in, with Judith Lucy, Akmal Saleh, Lano & Woodley, and the Umbilical Brothers going gag for gag. Hard to know who will win but if sentiment counts Lano & Woodley, having called it a day, stand a good chance.
Like most prize-giving, back-slapping galas, the Helpmann Awards have enough in the way of contentious choices and unlikely sparring partners to make even the most casual observer wonder who will have the last laugh.
The Helpmann Awards are at The Lyric, Star City, tonight.