REVIEW: 'Buy One, Get One Free!'

By David Allen - originally posted on the Arts Hub website Dace and Māra Kapsis, born 7 minutes apart, share a love of singing, a talent for musical comedy - and a face. These identical twins bring their hilarious story to the stage in Buy One, Get One Free, currently showing at The Butterfly Club, South Melbourne. With a healthy dose of sibling rivalry, beautiful harmonies and two effervescent personalities, the show takes us through the trials and joys of having a twin. Their stories of confusing classmates and coworkers bring out the lighter side of looking alike, even as they explore the deep and stronger bonds of sisterhood. Shown as it was in a small venue, some balance issues were apparent between the girls and the piano, with diction being occasionally unclear. Thankfully, the spoken sections of the show (where most of the comedy ensued) was wonderfully crisp and very clever. Music was well chosen for the girls, coming from a range of sources including musical theatre hits from Sideshow and Wicked. Harmonies were incredible, with much of the joy of the show being in the interplay between the two similar voices. Young performers doing cabaret in Melbourne can only be a good thing - especially when they are as talented as Māra and Dace. With such a wealth of ability, these two surely have a great future, whether in the cabaret genre or more generally in vocal performance.