August 2019
Whether
you’ll cotton to Moulin Rouge! may depend on any predisposed fondness you may
have for the period-piece jukebox film, created and co-written by Australian
director Baz Luhrman,
upon which it is based…and/or your reaction to an intentional sensory overload.
Shades
of Cabaret, the seductive-salacious
owner-emcee of the club, Harold Zidler (Danny Burstein) welcomes us into its
1899 Parisian storytelling universe, with promises of sensual gratification.
The story, thus framed (book by John
Logan), tells the tale of Christian, a callow young songwriter (Aaron Tveit), who teams up with artist
Toulouse-Latrec (Sahr Ngaujah) and Santiago, an Argentinian
sidekick of indeterminate function (Ricky
Rojas) to conquer the stage of the elite nightclub of the title. There he
will fall for the star performer and courtesan Satine
(Karen Olivo),
and threaten the plans Zidler has made for continued
backing of the club, by promising her affections to the powerful and criminous Duke of Monroth (Tam Mutu),
for whom Sabine at first mistakes Christian to be. Once that slight convolution
sets things in motion, the story, though not the style, settles into a fairly
straight ahead romantic triangle, honoring all the tropes. And I mean all of them, for in time we will also
learn that Sabine, shades of Mimi in La Bohème, has contracted consumption, and her days on
earth are numbered.
Back
to style: somewhat emulating Luhrman’s film, Alex Timbers’ production is
deliberately all over the place; the best way I can describe it is as a focused
smorgasbord that maintains an atmosphere of surrealism as the element unifying
playful, consciously intended inconsistency (abetted immeasurably by the visual
and technical design team). The acting styles range from grandiloquent
(Burstein) to low key realism (Mutu) with stops in
between—and the songs are a grab bag of mostly contemporary pop musical
references (from about 1950 to the present) and you’re as likely to hear a
snatch of a song used as passing recitative as a full power ballad or a song of
ironic comment. And there’s dancing galore, choreography by Sonya Tayah.
It’s
noisy and engaging and relentless and serious-minded and camp
and a fulfillment of expectations and a missed opportunity for not having
an original score and there is no
individual reaction that can be a barometer.
It’s
all spectacularly well done.
For
what it is.
I
guess that means you have to see it.
If
only to know what it will be for you.
Which
may be the point…
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