Broadway Reviews: “Death Becomes Her” Is a Camp Sensation; “Maybe Happy Ending” Is a Lovely New Musical; and Bless Your Heart, “Tammy Faye”

Death Becomes Her (c) Matthew Murphy + Evan Zimmerman

Broadway: Death Becomes Her 
At the Lunt-Fontaine Theatre 

Gay men and musical theater have always had a symbiotic relationship, but this season producers are baldly courting this “disposable income” demographic with shows that are not even queer-coded but proudly shouting the quiet gay parts out loud. To the list of shows like The Big Gay Jamboree, DRAG: The Musical, "Oh, Mary!" and Sunset Blvd, you can now add “Death Becomes Her,” the deliriously funny new musical based on the 1992 Meryl Streep-Goldie Hawn film, where two enormously talented and game actresses are essentially drag queening these memorable characters on stage. Once only known for her role in the TV series Smash, Megan Hilty has cemented a new “known for” role as a vain, two-time Oscar-nominated actress Madeline (the Streep character), eschewing traditional musical comic line readings with deliciously sassy lines “reads” worthy of RuPaul herself. Not to be outdone, Jennifer Simard’s aspiring novelist Helen Sharp (the Hawn role) may start out meek but is soon delivering acid-filled asides with the skill and vocal register-dropping accuracy of a Charles Busch. These two frenemies also have a tug-of-war over the hapless plastic surgeon Ernest Menville (the straight-lace, but always funny Christopher Sieber). And as if the show couldn’t be any gayer, there’s also the divine Michelle Williams (formerly of Destiny’s Child) as the mysterious Viola Van Horn (played in the movie by Isabella Rossellini), who tempts Madeline with a Fountain of Youth elixir. Williams starts the show dressed (in one of invaluable costume designer Paul Tazewell’s many jaw-dropping creations) like a couture perfume bottle ready-made for the Met Gala, but not necessarily for walking. Williams also gets a rare, thunderous second (!) burst of applause when she re-enters the story about 45 minutes into the first act, as if to remind the audience there are no small roles in musical theater for a diva. 

Theater Reviews: Capsule Reviews of “DRAG: The Musical” (Doesn’t Drag), “Mama I’m a Big Girl Now” (Is All About the Mamas), “The Devil’s Disciple” (Is Heavenly), “Sunset Blvd” (Has Fun U-Turns) and “What A Wonderful World” (About a Complicated Life)

DRAG: The Musical (c) Matthew Murphy

Theater: DRAG: The Musical 
At New World Stages 

When we first hear the Queen of Drag Queens herself, Liza Minelli, in voice-over, to set up the scene for DRAG: The Musical, I thought all was right in this messed-up world we currently find ourselves in. I am certainly not a connoisseur of the drag scene (I watched the first season of RuPaul’s Drag Race when the prize was like a hundred-dollar gift card), but the first shock of the evening wasn’t Liza, but the fact that the musical (written by Tomas Costanza, Justin Andrew Honard and Ashley Gordon) had rock-and-roll, almost grudge-style songs over what I would consider more of a drag milieu: show tunes (we are Off-Broadway) or at least club music. I got accustomed to the songs as the show proceeded (they were catchy), but it was a surprising choice. Otherwise, everything else about this show was the hoot I knew it would be. The story (as told by Liza) is about two drag queens/former besties who now own competing drag bar establishments across the block from each other and their ongoing…snatch games (again, not a watcher). It gives every member of the Fish Tank, headed by Alexis Gillmore (Broadway vet Nick Adams), as well as the ones from the Cat House, headed by Kitty Galloway (Alaska Thunderfuck), enough stage time to strut their stuff and read each other with finger-snapping regularity. These talented performers, many alums from reality TV like Lagoona Bloo, Jan Sport and Jujubee, are only vaguely familiar to me, but it was obvious by the cheers and the guffaws from the rest of the audience that they were fan favorites. Also in the show is Tom, Alexis’ estranged brother, who is, amusingly, the token “straight man” played by Joey McIntyre (finally someone from the Block I do know) and will be played by Rent star Adam Pascal starting on December 11. This is all to say that DRAG: The Musical, nimbly directed and choreographed by Spencer Liff, is one of the most unabashedly enjoyable shows in New York right now for acolytes and neophytes alike. 

Film Reviews: Three Powerful Dramas Highlight the Strength of Individuals During Stressful Times: Current Day England (“Bird”), 1930s America (“The Piano Lesson”) and 1980s Ireland (“Small Things Like These”)

Bird (c) MUBI

Film: Bird 
In Cinemas 

Earlier this year, we had a bird representing Death in the Julia Louis-Dreyfuss drama Tuesday. Now, in Andrea Arnold’s remarkable Bird, we get a human named Bird, who here represents life, at least in the eye of 12-year-old Bailey (Nykiya Adams), a product of a lower British class upbringing. Bird is embodied (the only verb that works) by the idiosyncratic and chameleon German actor Franz Rogowski. On the other end of the animal metaphor spectrum is Bailey’s father Bug who is played by the always interesting and risk-seeking Barry Keoghan, a loser of a provider but somehow making it as a responsible (if not diplomatic) parent. Bailey’s adventures also involve her violent half-brother Hunter (Jason Buda), whom she looks up to, as well as her mother (Jasmine Jobson) and her many other half-siblings living in equal squalor across town with her mum’s current boyfriend, a violent nob named Skate (James Nelson-Joyce). Although her hometown of Gravesend is mostly an urban city, Arnold surrounds Bailey with nature, not only in the farmlands nearby but also in her apartment where Bug’s latest get-rich scheme is buying a frog with lickable, psychedelic secretions.