From Bard to Bop: Laura Murphy chats THE LOVERS

Love. Lust. Magic. Miscommunication.

The Lovers takes Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and spins it into a kaleidoscope of modern romance — all set to a sparkling pop score that pulses with wit, heart, and self-awareness. It’s Shakespeare for the TikTok generation: funny, feminist, and full of feeling.

The mind behind this hit is Laura Murphy, an award-winning Australian writer, composer and performer whose work is reshaping contemporary musical theatre.

Murphy penned the book, music and lyrics for The Lovers, which premiered to sold-out audiences at the Sydney Opera House in 2022 and earned multiple Sydney Theatre Award nominations, including “Best Production of a Musical.”

Her other original works include Zombie! The Musical (Hayes Theatre Co), which won multiple Sydney Theatre Awards and the Time Out Critic’s Choice Award for “Best Musical,” and The Dismissal, which received both the Australian Writers’ Guild Award for Musical Theatre and the prestigious David Williamson Prize for Australian Writing. Also a seasoned performer, Murphy has appeared as a performer in Muriel’s Wedding, Cry-Baby and Grease, and has written songs for screen projects including William and Sparkles’ Magical Tales.

With The Lovers, Murphy’s crafted a musical that bridges centuries, pairing the Bard’s poetry with irresistible pop hooks and contemporary insight.

What first drew you to reinterpreting Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream as a contemporary pop musical?

Laura: I first read Midsummer when I was in high school and I was struck by how relevant the characters still felt, even though they were written many centuries ago. As a teenager who was in the throes of first crushes and hormone rushes, it fascinated me that the hopes and the love-struck follies of me and my friends weren’t so different from the four young lovers in Shakespeare’s story. Plus it was utterly hilarious. I was excited to give them a modern voice, a new language to tell their story that would resonate with contemporary audiences of all ages. In pairing original pop music with Shakespeare’s timeless words, it allowed me to explore the inner worlds of the characters; the things that spoken word alone cannot say. It also allowed me to question romantic myths that we continue to tell each other through song and through stories, and interrogate how they contribute to our behaviours and our expectations of romantic love.

How did you balance reverence for Shakespeare’s language with the need to make it accessible to modern audiences?

Laura: Appreciating the timelessness of Shakespeare’s language and the universal appeal of his stories was key to my wanting to create The Lovers. Although, I did explore a draft with a completely rewritten script in a modern voice, with none of Shakespeare’s original text. It was not nearly as delicious as this current version, where Shakespeare’s language is dancing right up against contemporary music and lyrics. It allows me to create a bridge between past and present and draw attention to the romantic myths that have echoed through the centuries and continue to be prevalent today.

The musical plays with the complexity of love and choice — what personal or social ideas shaped your adaptation?

Laura: I wrote The Lovers across my teens and twenties. Like most of us, these were significant years in navigating romantic love. I began to relate to Shakespeare’s characters in a different way because I was seeing very similar circumstances play out in my own relationships and in the relationships around me. These perspectives allowed me to interpret the expectations and vulnerabilities at the core of these characters, how that drives their actions and how that may play out in today’s world. While writing The Lovers, I also saw the rise in dating websites and apps which meant how we engage in romance was rapidly changing. This inspired me to frame Oberon as an eternal match-maker who is obsessed with creating Happily Ever Afters. And rather than letting things happen organically, he attempts to curate their connections, puppeteer how they perform romance and wrap their stories up in a pretty little bow. If only it were that simple!

What was the hardest character or relationship to reimagine for a modern audience?

Laura: Each character has certain expectations of what romantic love should look and feel like. I was perhaps most excited to explore this in Demetrius because I recognised his actions in many modern young men and I was excited to deconstruct where it may come from. In The Lovers, Demetrius is weighed down by societal pressures- namely about the type of man he should be and the type of woman he should be with. His genuine connection with Helena challenges all these ideals and brings out a side of himself that doesn’t fit with what the world expects of him. This dissonance and public self versus private self is so much fun to play with as an actor. But the challenge in writing for a character that is so guarded and conscious of how he presents himself to the world, is that there is a lot that he doesn’t, or isn’t willing to say. Or he says the opposite of what he actually thinks and feels. This meant that I couldn’t rely on the words he says to reveal the truth of who he is and instead had to allow the music and stage direction to evoke his inner world and the wounds that drive him.

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The Lovers is playing now at Theatre Royal, Sydney.

For tickets and more information, visit theloversmusical.com.au

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Header photo by Joel Devereux