THE QUEEN OF VERSAILLES on Broadway

 

"The Queen of Versailles" is not a perfect musical. But it is, perhaps, the musical we need.

The show is based on the film documentary of the same name, which chronicles Jackie Siegel and her insanely wealthy husband David's building of the "Biggest House in America" which they modeled after, and named "Versailles." The documentary lucked out in being filmed at just the right place and time to document the housing market bubble burst - which coincided with the Siegels being in the middle of construction and losing everything. Their story became a parable about our world and, particularly the U.S.'s hubristic obsession with wealth.

The musical, however, lucks out in its own way by being able to chronicle what happened to the Siegels in the ten years (+) since the documentary came out. And what happened after is, in a way, poetic justice on the level of a master storyteller. There couldn't be a more poignant ending if it had been invented by the writers. 

The flaws of "The Queen of Versailles" are not the fault of anyone involved in the show. They are the same problems endemic to the original documentary, and unless the writers wanted to start making stuff up from whole cloth (which wouldn't have been advisable) there wasn't much for them to do about it (and they do try VALIANTLY to do something about it.) The principal flaw is this: Jackie Siegel is, for much of the story, an inherently shallow, unlikable person. That's not to say you can't tell fantastic stories about unlikeable people...but you have to at least have empathy for them...and it's the combination of unlikable and surface level/non empathetic that puts the character and story at a big disadvantage. With the slight exception of following Jackie's early life - she grew up in a poor home, put herself through engineering school, couldn't catch a break as an attractive woman in the corporate world in the 1980's, invested in her looks, landed a rich (but abusive) husband, got out by using the money she earned from a beauty pageant and then landed Rich Husband #2, David - we don't feel much for her for most of the piece. Yes, she struggled. Yes, she had some very difficult times. What makes this all a bit hard to root for long term, however, is the fact that Jackie exists less as a person and more as... an appetite. The whole time I was watching the show I kept thinking of No-Face from the masterpiece "Spirited Away." Jackie is not complex. She has a singular objective - GET MORE. There will never be enough. She is greed personified. And pretty soon the voraciousness of that appetite, without a real justification behind it, WAY overshadows her struggles and any faint reasons she had to start wanting in the first place. Let's be real - she grew up in a lovely, warm, if humble home. She got a college degree. But she wouldn't stop until she was on "The Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" and even then she kept going. Anyone can understand her wanting security, success and money. We don't understand why she wanted it to such an extreme level - and THAT'S what the documentary and the musical don't let us in on - because they can't. WHY did she want SO much? How did she feel while she was building "Versailles"? Did she ever experience any semblance of happiness? To attempt to answer would be to make up an answer because the real Jackie never gives us more than the physical manifestation of an almost demonic appetite - without rhyme or reason. And because of that, everyone around her, everyone who has to deal with her appetite, is far more interesting than she is. 

I really hope that this is the season when Stephen Schwartz FINALLY gets his accolades. Schwartz is the composer/lyricist of "Wicked", "Pippin", "Godspell" and so many more musical theater staples. He had three hit shows running simultaneously on Broadway while he was still in his twenties, is beloved around the world and he has never won a single Tony. His work on "The Queen of Versailles" is beautiful - especially masterful to those who know music (he is making pop rock songs and arias work exquisitely in the same musical.) And his dramaturgical abilities are, as always, fantastic. I find there is always a moment in a Schwartz musical when, no matter how light the subject matter, you suddenly feel the rug pulled out from under you, your stomach drop, and a serious TRUTH dropped in the center of your solar plexus. In "The Queen of Versailles" that moment came, for me, in the second act when the court of Louis XIV (yes, in perhaps the most inspired choice in the whole show, Jackie's story interweaves with that of Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette), on their way to be executed, turn to the audience and call us out on what our culture has become, in the most brilliant way. In essence (and much more poetically) they say: "Congratulations 1%! You fixed our mistakes. You convinced the 99% that any moment, with enough hard work, or luck they could become you. So now they vote for you. And they let you do whatever you want. Because they believe the lie that tomorrow they could be a billionaire too." That, and the end of the show, echo the brilliantly disturbing ending of one of Schwartz's masterpieces: "Pippin", and I was so glad of it! Schwartz's score, as I believe all his scores are, is strong. There are overtones of some of his other work, but, hey, everyone's allowed to have a "signature". The book by Lindsey Ferrentino is good as well and the whole piece is very dramaturgically sound and strong. 

But, as I said, there's the problem of Jackie...and that's inevitably tied to the star of the show, who the piece was written for in the first place, Kristen Chenoweth.

    Photo by Matthew Murphy

We all love Chenoweth, and it's always great to see her back onstage. But her image has gone through...a lot...since she dazzled us in "Wicked" (or even in "The Apple Tree.") She's spent the last couple of decades, let's be real, primarily trying to be a sex symbol in film and T.V. And...let's just say that many are finding some similarities between her and the role she's currently playing. As such, it feels a bit like watching Chenoweth in concert when she's on stage... there's a lot of "parking and barking" with her signature arm moves when she hits the high notes, and, in essence, it feels like we're just watching her play herself. Not that there's anything wrong with that... but when you pair it with a character who's almost a void of a human, well, just like Jackie isn't the most interesting person in her own story, Chenoweth isn't the performer you're drawn to watch onstage. I have a feeling that the Leading Performer in a Musical Tony will once again elude her... but I have a strong feeling that Nina White, who plays Jackie's daughter Victoria, might just snag one for Best Featured Performer. 

Indeed, the stand outs of this show are the "secondary" characters - White as Victoria, Tatum Grace Hopkins who plays Jackie's niece Jonquil who Jackie adopts when Jonquil's father (Jackie's brother) can no longer take care of her due to his drug addiction (her mother is dead.) It's poignant that Jackie adopts Jonquil, throwing her on the growing pile of children she seems to never stop having, and drowning the, literally, poor girl in Juicy Couture sweat sets and designer handbags, yet never does anything to help her brother, or others suffering from drug addiction, not even noticing that her own daughter, Victoria, is stealing her Oxy pills...at least until, well, I don't want to give anything away. And even then...

Greg Hildreth as Gary - David's son who is more of a business partner than a relation, and Melody Butiu as Sofia - the Siegel's long term nanny - who dreams of having money like the Siegels so she can once again see her children (who she's been separated from for more than a decade, thanks to the Siegels never allowing her time off). In fact, it was the character of Gary who made me realize how similar "Queen of Versailles" is to another story about the downfalls of Faustian billionaire bargains - Mike Flanagan's "The Fall of the House of Usher" - which told the essence of the story "Versailles" is telling, but much better. But that's because "Usher" was allowed to really delve into the psyches of its characters. In "Versailles" the psyche of the main character, as I've said, is forced to be a bit of a void until the last quarter of the show - when events FORCE her to question her desires. It doesn't change her - but that questioning allows the fact that she DOESN'T change to hit us hard. 

The orchestra sounds fantastic, and I'm happy that it is much more of a full orchestra than we usually get on Broadway these days - it makes all the difference!

Michael Arden, as always, works his magic brilliantly. He can pretty much do anything and he directs with intelligence and care. The design elements are all fantastic, and were incredibly difficult to pull off. The entire production team deserves MAJOR praise for what they've managed to accomplish.

The second act is better than the first, but that's because the second half of Siegel's story is full of far more weight and forced introspection . It is a breath of fresh air to have an original musical on Broadway that is really, honestly speaking to our time and the state of the world. If you have a chance to check it out, I would.

John Davis

THE QUEEN OF VERSAILLES is currently playing at the St. James Theater on Broadway