‘ROUGE’ IS HUGE
Sexy throwback with big songs & wild set
These days, most Broadway theatergoers don’t so much want to see a show as take a warm bath inside of one. We crave relief from our growing terror of physical intimacy and our technology-fueled loneliness. What used to pass as immersive theatrical entertainment is, as we end this panicked second decade of the 21st century, no longer immersive enough. The bar has risen.
Ergo, “Moulin Rouge! The Musical.” Yes, baby, you’re a firework. Exploding all night long. Here we have an old-fashioned Broadway musical about a louche Parisian nighterie (windmill, cancan dancers) founded in the 19th century, the kind of melodramatic writer-meetsactress story of struggling bohemian artistes and tragic romance that’s been popular at least since the days of Giacomo Puccini and Alexandre Dumas, “Cabaret” and “Camille.”
Here we also have a decadent live translation of Baz Luhrmann’s widely beloved 2001 movie musical, an intense, anachronistic extravaganza starring Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman that stuffed then-contemporary pop anthems inside a letter-box of gorgeous retrored velour — or, in most cases, bits of pop anthems, Luhrmann’s cinematic aesthetic being as frenetic and commitment-averse as it was sensual and romantic.
“Moulin Rouge,” actually, was a heck of a prescient movie, drawing its energy from the great Technicolor musicals, sure, but also pointing toward the sampling,
mashed-up decade that was to come. It celebrated the feeling of falling in love without bothering with the annoying bits of actual relationships.
The musical at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre — with a new book by John Logan, direction by Alex Timbers and choreography by Sonya Tayeh — has two dominant attractions.
One is the sheer number of songs to be heard, at least in part. Reportedly, there are some 70 musical numbers (or fragments thereof ) featuring the work of 161 songsters from Edith Piaf to Mick Jagger, as arranged by Justin Levine. If you don’t like Bernie Taupin, stick around for Beyoncé.
Many of these songs were written after the film (Katy Perry was still a teenager in 2001), so that adds interest as you wonder what might be coming next. Some of the time, the effect of a particular arrival is comic, as in “Mamma Mia.” At others, the creative team is hoping for a deeper engagement that impresses upon you the timelessness of romantic longing.
The show’s second calling card is Derek McLane’s set, an eye-popping extravaganza that most people would associate more with the Las Vegas Strip (which is not a pejorative), and that has more red hearts than a Walgreens store in early February. The confetti cannons pop, it feels, about every 30 seconds.
And the show doesn’t so much start as begin to happen, once you have had your fill Instagramming the show’s huge logo and forging seemingly legal selfies with the decorously placed performers. There is a preshow without the pre-; we’re all just at this cool thing together, and it is implied that we should be privileged to partake. Sure. The real joint never had a costume designer like Catherine Zuber nor lights like the show put on by Justin Townsend.
Is there any genuinely complex feeling in “Moulin Rouge?” Not that much, frankly, and what there is arrives courtesy of Karen Olivo, playing the sad-eyed Satine and doing her considerable best to humanize not so much a character as a piece of iconography. She’s underused vocally, especially in Act Two. But it’s a powerful lead performance, not that you pull much for her relationship with Aaron Tveit’s wooing Christian, who is invulnerable, tunefully disconnected and very much part of the scenery, which might well have been the smartest way for him to go.
Mercifully, no Valentine’s card can fully swallow Danny Burstein, whose Harold Zidler (the owner of the joint) has received Logan’s best, flourishing writing and who is consistently a delight to watch. The supporting players, including Sahr Ngaujah as ToulouseLautrec, are all fine. They don’t get much to say; lots of songs to fit into the night.
As a stage show, “Moulin Rouge!” could use more narratively conscious direction and, for all the expansive locations, you don’t really feel like you are flying through Paris and up to the moon, as was the case with the film. The transitions are less inventive than the destinations. But this material does give permission to Tayeh to change things up minute by minute, to the point where the choreography-design fusion rocks you back on your feet, especially in the second act.
This is grand date-night pastiche, a unifying communal play list, an omnisexual dip into a sensual ocean with a few hundred nervous fellow travelers, no worries, being happy, selling tickets.