ajhlovestheatre

DEATH BECOMES HER

Book by Marco Pennette

Music and lyrics by Julia Mattison and Noel Carey

based on the Universal Pictures film written by Martin Donovan and David Koepp

directed by Christopher Gattelli

Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, New York City – open ended run

https://deathbecomesher.com

Not ANOTHER stage musical based on a movie!?! Actually yes, but Death Becomes Her is unusual…here’s a new tuner that isn’t just a fabulous night out, although it most assuredly is that, but one that actually manages to improve on its source material, the 1992 Robert Zemeckis film starring Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn and Bruce Willis. The set-up, story and characters are so preposterous and overwrought that it feels entirely appropriate that these people (best frenemies Hollywood actress Madeline and writer Helen, in constant rivalry and now in thrall to a potion that has given them immortality, but no sense of decency or restraint) would burst into song at moments of extremity, and this extravaganza sees them in full cry. It’s a darkly humorous fairytale for adults and if the movie didn’t get the flowers it deserved, despite a venomously camp turn from Streep, this gorgeous musicalisation looks set to make up for that. 

This is a musical that knows exactly what it is and who it’s for, from the moment Michelle Williams bursts all a-glitter through the floor at curtain-up, as the mysterious glamazon Viola Van Horne, leading her scantily clad acolytes in the staccato, anthemic ‘If You Want Perfection’, a sensual yet sinister paean to eternal youth (“I have a secret you would die for”) reminiscent of the title song from Kander and Ebb’s Kiss of the Spider Woman, which feels appropriate. And that’s before we get to “For The Gaze” (say it out loud), Megan Hilty’s opening number as Madeline which sees the Broadway star morph into Judy, Liza and even Julie Andrews’s drag persona from Victor/Victoria. Self-referential in a house full of theatre fans? Well yes. Screamingly funny and ruthlessly well executed? Oh hell yes.

Julia Mattison and Noel Carey’s score is gloriously showbiz, sampling everything from Broadway to big band to disco, and if not necessarily all that memorable at first listen, it’s rollickingly theatrical, with a tang of real unease underneath all the brassiness. The lyrics are genuinely witty too and the segues into song from Marco Pennette’s book suggests that the creatives at work here really know their craft. Pennette has done a terrific job of distilling the macabre lunacy of the screenplay into stage form and has created in Madeline and Helen (“Mad” and “Hel”…geddit?) what will probably be the most sought-after roles in years for musical theatre actresses who have aged out of being ingenues (although Madeline would have you believe otherwise). 

Whoever inherits these parts will have their work cut out to match the brilliance of Hilty and Jennifer Simard though. A luminous stage presence, Hilty can apparently sing anything, employing her sweet power belt and stratospheric soprano notes to magnificent effect, and charting with bravura comic skills Madeline’s journey from monstrous self-regard to despair then back out the other side. Check out her hilariously affected mid-Atlantic accent when Mad is at the height of her powers. Hilty is such a barnstormer that a lesser performer than Simard might risk being seriously upstaged.

Simard plays Helen with devastating deadpan, and finds a bruised melancholy under the bitchy asides (of Madeline she says “I love her like a twin….who stole my nutrients in the womb”). A peerless clown with an immense voice of pure steel, Simard makes something sharp and unsettlingly funny out of Helen’s mania after her former bestie steals her boyfriend, and her transformation into wise-cracking uber-camp glamazon is a particular joy in an evening stuffed full of them. She’s breathtakingly good.

The essential thing about both of these remarkable central performances is that the more appalling and self-serving these women become, the more we adore them. Christopher Sieber as Ernest, the cosmetic surgeon torn between these, er, ladies, is also wonderful, coming close to stopping the show with a drunken second half number in which inanimate objects in his study start singing back to him. There’s terrific, crowd-pleasing work too from Josh Lamon as Madeline’s long suffering assistant and Taurean Everett as Viola’s statuesque manservant. 

Christopher Gattelli has numerous international credits as a choreographer but unbelievably this is his first outing as a Broadway director and honestly one wonders why it took so long. This is an elaborate production but Gattelli marshalls it with pinpoint focus, dynamism and panache, lending equal weight to the comic and gothic horror elements, and giving full rein to the special effects (Tim Clothier’s illusions have been seriously beefed up since the Chicago tryout) but never letting them overtake storytelling and character development. There’s a breadth and consistency of vision here that feels like vintage Broadway, right through to the stunning design work (sets by Derek McLane, costumes by Paul Tazewell, purple-heavy lighting by Justin Townsend), the big bold choreography and orchestrations, and sound by Peter Hylenski that’s suitably bombastic but allows us to catch every lyric and zinger. This is a deluxe staging, and it feels like money very well spent.

The women’s final number, ‘Alive Forever’, a belty, soaring duet with an almost operatic intensity as the women grimly acknowledge their eternal codependency, is a gleefully venomous riposte to Wicked’s ‘For Good’ or Side Show’s ‘I Will Never Leave You’ and gets the exhilaratingly full-throated treatment from Hilty and Simard. It segues into a surprisingly touching final scene, which I won’t spoil here, that differs from the film and is a perfect button on a supremely satisfying evening.

I caught Death Becomes Her during its Chicago tryout and it was already a thumping good night out, but now it’s a truly memorable one. Savagely funny and garishly beautiful, it’s sensational entertainment and joins Hells Kitchen and The Outsiders as a current example of mainstream Broadway at its absolute best. It’s a big fat hit and one imagines that the plans to roll out international productions is already underway.