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Week Of July 2, 2007 - Fri
June 29, 2007
The Unexpected Pleasure Of XanaduI saw the biggest new hit to land Off-Broadway in years. Unfortunately for the show, it’s opening on Broadway next Tuesday.
Xanadu, which I bought tickets for after a half-price opportunity showed up in the e-mail and have been apologizing for since whenever answering “what are you seeing in New York?,” turns out to be (nearly) the best of all possible answers to the question, “Why the hell would anyone make a Broadway show out of one of the crappiest movies ever?”
Xanadu deserves to be on the list of Broadway adaptations of other media that actually did the job of creating something more than a pale reproduction, along with The Lion King, Wicked (which does a better job of reflecting on The Wizard of Oz than of the novel that is so much smarter than the show) and Avenue Q (which spins Sesame Street). Xanadu takes the insane camp of the film and reflects on not only the film itself but the absurdities of all kinds of cultural ideas, especially on Broadway, and offers no fewer than three show-stealing performances, which is all you can expect from any show. (The Producers is in a different category, converting to the theater with changes, but in spirit an almost exact duplicate… plus some new songs.)
On the other hand, all three of those shows I mentioned above are big hits and I wish I could confidently say that I expect the same of Xanadu, but this satire is missing a couple elements that make it BROADWAY and not Off-Broadway. The first is length. A 90 minute, one-act musical that audiences love is a clear winner at the Off- Broadway $50 price point… and trouble on The Great White Way. Xanadu is a joyous party of a show, but even the Helen Hayes Theater it is playing in has been cut down to a more modest size, which fits the tone and the length. The second thing is that the show is very insider, which is great for people who love to be challenged and is a home run for Gay Broadway, but is challenging to Mom & Pop Middle America.
And finally, the great Tony Roberts is simply not a great fit for this show. He plays the roles that Gene Kelly plays in the movie and the problem is, he is too old to pull off the physicality. I don’t know if the show was restructured around him over time, but his big dance number uses the “shadow dancer” schtick which sometimes work, but screams “Why is he in this show if he can’t dance?” here, and he never puts on skates and as you will surely remember, Kelly screaming down a ramp on skates was the second most famous image from the film, after Olivia’s hair blowing. The show desperately needs a high-powered veteran for the role in the show. There is no one in the show who anyone outside of NY (or San Francisco or L.A. or Miami) knows to draw ticket sales. But more importantly, that central role naturally feels like you want a celebrity who you don’t expect can still dance or skate, but does.
Think Jerry Lewis in Damn Yankees more than a decade ago or Joel Grey in Wicked. The obvious “must have” for the role is Tommy Tune, who would win a Tony and kill the room every night if he was willing to commit to such a minor role. Broadway vets like John Cullum (currently in 110 In The Shade) or John McMartin (currently in Grey Gardens) would be great, but perhaps not enough to draw. The show would almost be better served by getting a young star to play the role in old age make-up and to camp up the performance by giving him some absurdly big skating gags to do. It doesn’t help matters that Roberts’ one number is one of the weakest in the show.
But that brings me back around to the strongest element of the show…
Kerry Butler.
In the Broadway dictionary, next to the entry, “The Pretty Blonde With Big Pipes And A Spectacular Gift For Comedy” is a picture of Ms. Butler. I don’t know whether Xanadu will be her Speed-to-Sandra-Bullock, but I will go see anything this woman shows up in as the next few years play out. You have to be pretty great to play a character that is so busy being a bad actress. But even more, Butler gets big laughs out of every tiny thing she does, whether it is her speech (Olivia Aussie when needed), her readings, her skating, her dancing, and even her most subtle bits of physical comedy. Like Olivia Newton-John, Butler is physically slight here, so you might expect her to get lost next to scene stealers Jackie Hoffman and Mary Testa (more on them in a moment) or next to big, dumb hunk Cheyenne Jackson. But there is no battle that she does not win… even when she is buried at the back of the stage when wild action is happening upstage. It is a truly extraordinary performance and it should be remembered when the Tony noms are announced next spring.
As it turns out, the two big blonde performers on Broadway right now are both veterans of Hairspray: The Musical. Ms. Butler originated the key role of Penny Pingleton while Laura Bell Bundy, who is now starring in Legally Blonde: The Musical, was the original Amber Van Tussle. However, Ms. Butler would be far better than Ms. Bundy is in the lead of Legally Blonde. Thing is, Bundy played an evil brat in Hairspray and was great at it and Butler played sweet and is one of the most impressive comic performers I have seen emerge in a show since Roger Bart and Gary Beach (best known going into the show as the candelabra in Beauty & The Beast) broke out in the Broadway version of The Producers. Mark my words. This performance is the launching pad of a major, major career.
Speaking of all things Brooksian, with due respect to Mel and Susan Stroman, and the talents of Andrea Martin and Sutton Foster, you have to wonder what the Brooks & Stroman would think if they showed up to see Xanadu. Because not only will Sutton Foster have to go a long way to match Kerry Butler in the potential of the role of Inga (Teri Garr in the movie), but Jackie Hoffman is the kind of singular, unique performer that would be bigger than expectations were she to be playing Frau Blucher. And even crazier, Hoffman too is a veteran of the original cast of Hairspray: The Musical, playing… oy… Kerry Butler’s mother, Prudy Pingleton.
Stroman is familiar with Andrea Martin after Martin did her turn in The Producers movie as the lead Little Old Lady, but Martin is a great performer of a certain kind of broadness, while Hoffman offers a level of kink that is beyond. It’s similar to the difference between casting Marty Short as Igor versus someone like Christopher Fitzgerald, the least veteran member of the YF cast.
In any case… Hoffman, a Second City and Sedaris Family vet, leaves you on the edge of your seat every time she opens her mouth because almost anything could come out. Her singing range is wide, if not the most mellifluous, and her range of comedy rhythms seems endless. She jumps from lesbian camp to Fanny Brice ethnic to Stan Laurel sidekick scene stealer in an instant.
At first, Hoffman is in a dead heat with Mary Testa, who is teamed with Hoffman as a Greek Chorus of Evil, and who also kills, stealing scenes left and right. But the show ultimately demands more of Hoffman, so she gets a step up. Still, between the three main women in Xanadu, the thefts keep coming, with whomever gets the last line in each scene getting the last laugh.
The supporting cast, especially Andre Ward and Curtis Holbrook as “sister muses” as well as all forms of supporting players, are terrific.
So what’s the problem?
Well, 3 or 4 of the numbers really don’t work. Really, anytime we get away from Butler, Hoffman, and Testa or attempt anything remotely earnest, the show screeches to a halt. The most sentimental number is the one in which Roberts reflects on his younger days and doesn’t dance… and man, what a drag. It hurts. I have a lot of respect for this actor, but he looks lost in all of this. And later, when he has a tie on his head like a headband and is supposed to look goofy, it is not charming… it is just goofy. (The precursor, besides the film, is, ironically, John McMartin in Sweet Charity, circa 1966.)
Also, the male lead of the show (newly Cheyenne Jackson, after James Carpinello went down with a skating bone break) is a skilled performer… it’s not him… but it is about the most replaceable male lead that I have ever seen in any show ever. He is, in many ways, the Rocky of Rocky Horror… beautiful, playing dumb, and not a key player. He simply gets none of the opportunity of the women nor does he bring something else unique to the table as a character. It may be fitting to the film and I am not sure there is a good answer, but it is a weakness in the show’s game.
But mostly, the show is just too camp for Broadway. It may, indeed, be the gayest show ever not starring a woman who can be easily impersonated by a drag queen. And again, at 100 bucks a ticket, people don’t want comic irony, they want a show that believes in itself the way that Andrew Lloyd Weber and Legally Blonde and other shite does. Avenue Q is the exception to the rule lately. But for Xanadu to run long enough to get a shocking Tony win (so very unlikely) that could set it up for a second year, it would be a small miracle.
If the producers of the show are smart… and God knows, they are smart asses, putting this magnificent idiot savant of a show on its feet… they will be one of the first (would it be a first?) to even take a show Off-Broadway after opening on Broadway. I imagine most of the physical elements of the show can travel and that most of the talent would take the pay cut.
E Me.
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