DEATH BECOMES HER
Book by Marco Pennette
Music & Lyrics by Julia Mattison and Noel Carey
Based on the screenplay by Martin Donovan and David Koepp
Directed and Choreographed by Christopher Gattelli
Lunt-Fontanne Theatre
Official Website
Reviewed by David Spencer
I’ve procrastinated about reviewing Death Becomes Her (the musical) because I’m not entirely sure what to say about it. Even typing these words feels like a cold improv—ironic while considering a show so meticulously put together—so I suppose the best thing to do is break it down into component considerations.
What’s It about? It’s based on the popular 1992 film of the same title (screenplay by Martin Donovan and David Koepp), a supernatural comedy about the rivalry between two lifelong frenemies, a predatory superstar actress (Megan Hilty) and a writer of more modest success (Jennifer Simard), whom the actress has tortured by stealing away the men she likes—and triggering the events of the play by stealing her fiancée (Christopher Siebert), a renowned plastic surgeon, whom she will subsequently marry. Years later, the star’s popularity has waned with her “thicker” appearance, exhausted hubby can no longer help her, so she seeks out a dark arts sorceress (Michelle Williams) for a potionesque solution. Immortality is involved. I didn’t know the film before seeing the musical (though from seeing clips over the years, I roughly intuited as much as I’ve described), so I’ll leave it there, lest there be spoilers for any other newbies.
Is it funny? That may be harder to parse. This much can be said objectively. Everybody involved understands what comedy is and how comedy works. The book (Marco Penette), music & lyrics (Julia Mattison & Noel Carey) are well-wrought (though I’d submit that the score relies too heavily on expository patter); the actors—particularly the three leads—are old hands at getting new laughs; and in the direction of Chistopher Gattelli, there’s none of the tin-eared explosturoiks and over-wrought ga-ba-boinging that several major directors, who shall go nameless here, still impose upon the (un?)wary with gibbonous glee. Which is not to say that he shies away from the big business of lavish special effects…but they’re sharply delivered and well-timed. The show comes by its prodigious laughs honestly.
So what’s the problem? The problem for me may not be a problem for you. But I didn’t laugh much because I didn’t care much. Why not? Because the story gives you no one to care about. Their motivations and goals are utterly narcissistic and selfish. They never cross the line into being hateful—they fulfill certain comic tropes and only do just-desserts comic damage to each other—but they never give you anything much to root for either. (Not to put too fine a point on it, my companion of the afternoon had to leave a bit early due to an unavoidable work obligation and found doing so to lack the anticipated sense of disappointment.) On the flip side, that’s endemic to the source property itself. It’s a beloved movie and the musical thus has a mandate to be at least as satisfying to those who know the film and have the expectations of fandom—and therefore, by extension, to those who don’t, but would be similarly seduced by the tale’s giddily heartless core.
Well-choreographed (also Gattelli), designed to be both visually extravagant and amusing (no easy balance; Derek McLane sets and Paul Tazewell costumes), yummily musical supervised & directed (Mary-Mitchell Campbell and Ben Cohn, respectively) and orchestrated (Doug Besterman), Death Becomes Her is a musical I would never steer you away from. It’s doing exactly what it has set out to do. And doing it with panache.
But for me, personally, despite the superlative supernatural hijinks…I was never under its spell.