Elton John's new musical "Tammy Faye" opened Wednesday at London's Almeida Theatre.
Marc Brenner
Recent off the atrocious “Satan Wears Prada” musical in Chicago, Elton John is again on the boards a mere two months later with the Televangelist Wears Mascara in London.
That’s proper. The singer-songwriter’s newest musical is “Tammy Faye,” a biography of the controversial spiritual TV persona Tammy Faye Messner, which premiered Wednesday night time on the Almeida Theatre.
TAMMY FAYE
Two hours and 45 minutes, with one intermission. On the Almeida Theatre, Almeida St in London. By Dec. 3.
“Tammy Faye” doesn’t deserve the fireplace and brimstone that “Prada” obtained, however you received’t stroll out praising Jesus both.
Directed by Rupert Goold, the grasp of slick British exports similar to “Ink,” “King Charles III” and the “American Psycho” musical, the shallow “Tammy Faye” by no means comes to grasp its endlessly fascinating important character. Nor does it make a lot of an try. It's an unsatisfying surface-level examination of an icon.
The musical is an Ikea-style, factory-like, goofy “It’s a Small World After All” of American and church-goer stereotypes (they love that right here) delivered by purposefully robotic actors, which is palatable to some extent. However finally we crave to know why Tammy Faye mattered, really feel why she was so distinctive and notice why we're watching a virtually three-hour musical about her scored by the singer-songwriter of “Tiny Dancer.”
That much-needed hallelujah second, I’m afraid, by no means arrives.
Tammy is performed by Katie Brayben, who provides a sturdy however uninspired efficiency. The actress is, after all, hobbled by our reminiscences of the latest movie “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” during which Jessica Chastain gave a mesmerizing, heartfelt and in the end Oscar-winning flip that went far deeper than a caked-on impression. Brayben can’t contact it.
The fatuous and un-insightful e-book by author James Graham, whose “Ink” was so taut and delectable when it performed Broadway in 2019, does her no favors.
Get this — throughout our first encounter with Tammy Faye, she comically bends over for a proctologist who tells her she has most cancers. She finds out he’s homosexual, and goes on to make some predictable lowbrow intercourse jokes. That, I child you not, is the start of this musical.
Co-starring as her sleazy husband Jim Bakker is Broadway’s Andrew Rannells, who exudes showbiz charisma that the manufacturing in any other case lacks. We meet the chirpy pair as they attempt to discover a preaching perch subsequent to Billy Graham (Peter Caulfield) and Jerry Falwell (Zubin Varla). At first, the couple is smitten.
Can we really feel the love tonight? Sorry, Elton, not tonight. Their chemistry is non-existent.
The duo arrives on the aggressive scene “proper smack-dab in the midst of the TV age,” as Billy sings. Their youth and creativity is completely suited to the small display screen.
Tammy Faye and Jim type PTL, a ok a the “Reward The Lord” community, and so they grow to be a mammoth success. Graham’s e-book doesn’t adequately specific simply how massive they have been — watched by hundreds of thousands, the topic of a skit on “Saturday Night time Reside,” identified by just about all people within the US. The British viewers, in the meantime, has no concept how far-reaching the scope of their affect was at its peak.
John and Graham’s musical decides that Tammy’s life goes downhill as soon as Jim has intercourse with Jessica Hahn, who claims he raped her, and allegedly sleeps with males. There's way more to it than that, similar to huge fraud and Tammy’s tablet dependancy, that are barely talked about. Tammy had her personal extra-marital dalliance, too. She additionally had a burgeoning music profession that produced higher tunes than something we hear on the Almeida.
All of that is enacted on Bunny Christie’s stark-white set of TV screens that appears just like the soundstage from “Snort In.” The identical designer of “Firm” and “The Curious Incident of the Canine Within the Night time-Time” lends that technological, in-Vogue-in-the-UK aesthetic to a present that’s really harmed by it.
John pumps up traditionalist Falwell right into a foolish rock ’n’ roll villain, who pushes Ronald Reagan to embrace evangelical Christianity like Ursula urged Ariel at hand over her voice.
“I’ve been referred to as by my creator to make America larger,” Falwell sings. Significantly.
One other dumb track, “He’s Inside Me,” decides, with out a lot wit, that Christian tv is inherently homoerotic.
Goold — or maybe John — nods to John’s pop oeuvre by way of a rendition of “Crocodile Rock” throughout Act 2 for no obvious purpose, reminding us that musicals should not John’s strongest go well with.
Brayben has her moments. She succeeds in loud-though-bland ballads similar to “Empty Fingers” and her massive quantity “If You Got here To See My Cry.” We consider in her sorrow because of the actress, however there isn’t any depth or specificity to the fabric. They arrive out of nowhere. The milquetoast lyrics, by Jake Shears of the Scissor Sisters, don’t have a kiki.
John’s rating is workman-like and hesitantly waves whats up to rock, Christian music, honky-tonk and nation. If solely it have been extra memorable. There’s no “Electrical energy,” “I Simply Can’t Wait to Be King” and even “My Strongest Swimsuit” from “AIDA” right here.
So far as the way forward for John’s musical theatre profession goes, he may wish to lastly give us a break and let the solar go down on him.
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