Reviewed by David Spencer
First of all, I guess, you have
to abandon the why of it. Why do a stage version of a pop-rock film musical fantasy from the 80s
that was a notorious flop? The only answer that makes any sense is: Because
it's there.
(What do
I think about that? Hang in.)
An icon
of awfulness, having achieved a kind of so-bad-it's-delirious cult-status not
dissimilar to Plan Nine from Outer Space, the film Xanadu offers nothing to a theatrical
creative team except a target as defenseless as a guinea pig in an Ecuador
eatery. Yet for some that's quite enough, and so, mercilessly (though with a
certain degree of giddy affection) librettist Douglas Carter Beane and director Christopher
Ashley have
taken it upon themselves to lock, load and fire—their ammo a good deal of
self-referential humor (the dialogue keeps commenting on the story's own
goofiness), a tacit (and yet not so tacit) gay-camp sensibility, and those
perfectly terrible-but-catchy songs by Jeff Lynne and John Farrar.
(My general
opinion of the enterprise? Not yet.)
Ashley
has trod the camp and nostalgia boards often before, with uneven results, but Xanadu
represents his
imprimatur at its most effective and entertaining. Given the combination of
Beane's almost pysychotically irreverent adaptation and a very sharp comic ensemble,
Ashley manages a rare balance (rare at times even for him) in which the camp
and kitsch are over-the-top but not labored, in which the humor is loud and
aggressive but not forced. It's difficult to assess exactly why the elements mesh, beyond the
freak alchemy of the right people in the right room with the right warped
passion for the "wrong" material—but part of it may lie, as I
say, in his casting of performers who, no matter how much they nudge, wink and
mug, maintain a certain...ahh, God, reality certainly isn't the word, surreality
is too glib and verisimilitude
isn't anywhere
in the room...but let's call it integrity of archetype. Like the kind of prime nuthousing
you find in a first-rate Mel Brooks movie such as Young Frankenstein or Blazing Saddles. They all get the joke and know
how to deliver it.
In this
modern-day fantasy of Greek gods and mortals, the gestalt travels from the ingˇnue stylings
of Kerry Butler as
a supernatural muse, Cheyenne Jackson as the slow-witted skateboard hero she inspires, Mary
Testa and Jackie
Hoffman as
less-benign muses who take it upon themselves to curse the cute couple, through
all the supporting players—and finds what is perhaps its quintessence in Tony
Roberts, playing
the dual role of a corporate financier and a James Mason-tinged great god Zeus.
I don't mean to say that Roberts is the heart of the show—that would be
Ms. Butler and Mr. Jackson—but he is, as ever, the master of the easy
comic lob, and the decision to cast him in the first place bespeaks a hip
awareness of how useful such understatement is as a way of anchoring all the madness around
it.
(So,
this is, like, a rave review, right? Read on.)
It also
doesn't hurt that Xanadu has assiduously emphasized low budget virtues (it's
playing in Broadway's smallest, most intimate house, the Helen Hayes), in contrast to the megabux
film, so it's quite clear from the beginning that the game is on, and what the
game will be. And all the elements are in dizzy collusion, among them musical
direction and arrangements (Eric Stern), gag and cliche costumes (David Zinn), cheap scenery (David Gallo) and shameless choreography (Allison
Bibicoff).
All this
acknowledged—
(Here it
comes:)
I don't
believe every musical has to be useful, meaningful or even (openly)
experimental—nor even that a musical can't just be fun—but I do
sort of feel that musical theatre and its practitioners ought to be doing something
better with their time, with the venue, with the opportunity to get on, than
exploiting a bad movie for its self-evident parody points. I just don't think because
it's there or
its cousin because we can is a worthy enough reason. Even because it's there and
I love it falls
short, because the best you can hope for is to transform unintentional camp
into extravagantly aware camp. Though done this well, itÕs no small
transformation.
Then
again with this kind of material, Because if we do it right we will make
lots of money, can't
be underestimated. And while, speaking as an audience member and critic, I'm
indifferent—as a theatre professional, I can't fault that part of the
motivation. Or the result, at least the one I saw the night I attended: a
packed house where the audience had a ball.
And you
know the old saying: One man's Xanadu...