The theme statement for the New York Musical Theatre Festival musical Songs for the Fallen could easily be adapted from that of one of the more famous and acclaimed musicals in the Broadway canon: "Life and death are a cabaret, old chum." And what a cabaret it is in this aggressively enjoyable outing from Australia when the chanteuse of ceremonies at the center of it all is the one, the only, Marie Duplessis.

Never heard of her, you say? Sure you have. She's the 19th-century French courtesan whose wit and, uh, welcoming nature made her not only companion to rich and influential figures throughout the Paris scene, but her torrid fling with Alexandre Dumas, fils, inspired his classic novel, The Lady of the Camellias, which itself spawned countless plays, movies, the opera La Traviata, and no shortage of chitter-chatter. Following her death at age 23, Duplessis became the prototypical consumptive heroine and something of a romantic figure who made living in poverty seem, at least at times, not so bad.

So when Marie introduces herself to us at the start of the show, she does so by imparting the understanding that what you're about to see is indeed a type of nightclub riff on the woman's life, and not one bound by rigorous adherence to historical accuracy or stylistic consistency. Anachronisms, rock-concert music and dancing, and daffy, usually inappropriate comedy abound here. One of the running gags of the breezy 80-minute evening is Marie trying to sort out the moral of her life, and settling on ten of them, each the most important thing you need to know.

Not everyone could pull this off, but Harbridge, who wrote the show with Basic Hogios, makes it work by never letting it sacrifice its serious examination of Marie's plight to all the silliness that surrounds it. The many men around Marie (all played by Simon Corfield and Garth Holcombe) may be crafted as one-dimensional portraits or even outright archetypes crazily inspired by commedia dell'arte tradition. Isn't it fair for Marie to see her (let's be honest) persecutors in this way, regardless of how much she used them in return? And it's a simple fact that as her life progresses, she keeps getting sicker, more desperate, and more prone to making the bad choices that will grant her immortality at an unthinkably high cost.

Harbridge, whose brilliant performance is inseparable from the writing, plays into this, too. Her Marie is a woman who loves to have fun, and will take it anywhere she can get it, even from the audience; at the performance I attended, she had an inordinate amount of fun with a woman named Blossom and a far-too-young girl who got an eyeful of all the antics from the first row. But by underpinning all of that liveliness with silent anguish, and the tragic inevitability of the death to come (in a Brechtian twist, Marie happily announces it at the outset), Marie is clearly fueled by fueled by a serene regret that life, however full the extent to which she lived it, was not longer.

Fusing a piercing belt with an old-school legit mezzo, Harbridge brings that same quality into the musical numbers, which, like our cabaret today, depend on the intimacy of the setting for maximum emotional power. (Some also mock or exploit the form, always to compelling effect.) The score veers among torchy plaints, raucous montages (Marie plows her way through more than a dozen lovers in one), and earnest deconstructions of personality that capture all of who Marie was. Hogios provides the highly electric (and, at times, overloud) accompaniment, which, like Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge! (Marie references it frequently, calling out Nicole Kidman's character as a further evolution of the Duplessis mystique), views the past through the musical language of the present.

The overall effect, which also comprises a set (by Michael Hankin) that's dominated by a giant round bed, psychedelic lighting (Alex Berlage), and temporally, jaggedly zig-zagging costume plot (Lisa Mimmocchi), is arresting, and almost perfectly balanced. Director Shane Anthony has injected plenty of humor that highlights the enterprise's irreverence (the vaudeville-style cards stage left give each scene a whimsical title ("Last Tango in Paris," for example) without undercutting it, and without making you feel that the concept is at all strained. He's left enough room for everyone to breathe, too, which is exactly what a show like this needs: When I saw the show, Harbridge, Corfield, and Holcombe got an absurd amount of mileage out of a stick-on mustache that would not stay put, for example.

It's only in the concluding scenes that the energy dips; once Marie's death is clearly in sight, the scenes get talky and earnestly reflective in a way that takes a bit of getting used to in this format. But the final picture is redemptive for both Duplessis and the show: Marie quietly expiring in bed while the men rhythmically toss camellias onto it and her is as haunting and affecting a scene as NYMF has seen in many moons. It's an odd curtain for a cabaret, perhaps, but for Marie, Harbridge, and Songs for the Fallen as the remarkable bridge between the two, there could scarcely be a better note to end on.

Songs for the Fallen
at The New York Musical Theatre Festival 2015
Tickets online, Venue and Performance Schedule: The New York Musical Theatre Festival 2015 Guide and Tickets