First Lady Suite

With Michelle Obama's arms, legs and hairdstyles coming under weekly scrutiny by a insatiable gossip media, Hillary Clinton taking centre stage in the Lockerbie bombing row and Curtis Sittenfeld's American Wife providing fictionalised insights into Laura Bush's time in the White House, there's never been more interest in First Ladies past and present.

Presidential wives of a little further back in history are the subject of First Lady Suite – the cast of characters includes Jackie Kennedy, Eleanor Roosevelt and Ladybird Johnston – and the prospect of a peek into their hidden lives is no less appealing.

What's less appealing is Michael John LaChiusa’s score, which provides a challenge for the cast of young singers and isn’t exactly easy listening for the audience, either, with its leaps to surprising high notes and stop-start rhythms.

First seen in New York in 1993, with a prologue and epilogue added later, this is no thoughtful probe into complex lives. In two of the four main scenes the ladies in question (Jackie Kennedy and Eleanor Roosevelt) are described in the narrowest terms by others – respectively a disgruntled assistant and a female journalist who may have been Mrs Roosevelt’s lover. Kennedy is portrayed as a devil in a pillbox hat while Roosevelt, a feminist and civil rights activist who transformed the role of First Lady, as a vacuous twit.

The composer allows a tune to slip in when the spotlight falls on Mamie Eisenhower, and Samantha Shields seizes the opportunity to steal the show with both hands, skipping around the stage and belting out Here's Mamie with a nod, a wink and plenty of all-American razzle dazzle.

A version of this review first appeared in The Herald.

Remaining performances at August 26 on 7pm and August 28 at 3.15pm.