CAST KEEPS CAMPY HUMOR ROLLING IN UPBEAT ‘XANADU’
Depending on your age bracket, you may not remember the wildly cheesy 1980 movie musical flop “Xanadu.” It was a celebration of ELO pop tunes, pink leg-warmers, roller skates and the irresistible Olivia Newton-John as a Greek muse sent down from Mt. Olympus to inspire a Venice Beach artist to open a roller disco.
In 2007, newly arrived La Jolla Playhouse artistic director Christopher Ashley directed a Broadway musical adaptation of the film, then opened the show’s U.S. tour at the Playhouse a year later. Realizing the impossibility of modernizing or fixing “Xanadu,” the musical creators — Douglas Carter Beane and composers Jeff Lynne and John Farrar — dug even deeper into the cheese for a lighthearted parody that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense but still entertains.
“Xanadu” returned to San Diego this month in a new staging at San Diego Musical Theatre in Kearny Mesa. Directed by Jason Blitman, with choreography by Allison Bibicoff and musical direction by Richard Dueñez Morrison, the spirited one-act musical is a celebration of silliness. If you’re a fan of ELO (the
1970s supergroup Electric Light Orchestra), bright costumes and broad humor, and you aren’t a stickler for plot development, this is the show for you.
The show features a cast of nine, plus two offstage women vocalists, singing to recorded tracks. Leading the show is Krista Feallock as the muse Clio, who disguises herself as the rollerskating girl Kira, who speaks with an over-the-top Australian accent (in a winking homage to NewtonJohn). Feallock is a funny actor with good singing chops, if modest skating skills. Kira has come to inspire the artistically blocked and not-especiallybright Sonny Malone, who is played with guileless likability and a warm singing voice by Jordan Markus.
Romance quickly sparks between Kira and Sonny, thanks to the scheming of Clio’s sibling muses Calliope and Melpomeme (played with exuberance by Wendy Waddell and Taylor Henderson, respectively). If Clio falls for a mortal, she’ll be permanently exiled from Mt. Olympus. Just why the sisters conceive their plot is not clear, but it does allow them to sing the ELO hit “Evil Woman.”
The rest of the paperthin story is a vehicle for more Jeff Lynne songs, sung by the sibling muses (Cody Bianchi, Annie Buckley, Domo D’Dante and Sarah Pierce), as well as Danny (Meghan O’Brien Lowery) — an aging nightclub impresario who also fell in love with Clio when she was on a previous earthly visit decades
before. By the end, Zeus, the Cyclops, Medusa and a Centaur are all harmonizing with the muses as the love story winds to its inevitable upbeat conclusion. Filling out the cast are offstage singers Daisy Martinez and Isabelle Jennings Pickering.
The musical features scenic design by Mike Buckley, costumes by Chong Mi Land, lighting by Michelle Miles and sound by Brandon Boomizad. It runs a brisk 90 minutes.
“Xanadu” has a seminonsensical plot, but its cast is committed to entertaining the audience, and for fans of ELO, it’s nice to hear those old songs sung in new ways.