State of the Art

  "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 th...

                                            The company of Swept Away , photo by Emilio Madrid "Swept Away", now playing at the Longacre Theater on Broadway is...frustrating. It's the kind of piece that annoys theatergoers, and especially industry insiders, to no end. A musical that seemingly came out of nowhere (it had a successful production at Arena stage just before opening on Broadway) with marketing that tells us less than nothing about the show except that the ocean is in someway involved. One hopes that it's vague origins equate to a "diamond in the rough" piece... that rare original musical that caught the attention of a talented, intelligent producer and got it's "big break." Sadly, that's not what I saw at the Longacre. Dig a little deeper and you'll find that "Swept Away" was simply a "bee in the bonnet" passion project of the lead producer. One need only look at the...