PRISCILLA…costumes, dancing, rocking escapism @
State Theatre
Roy Berko
(Member,
American Theatre Critics Association, Cleveland Critics Circle)
There is an old
expression in theatre evaluation:
“If you come out of a musical whistling costumes and sets, it’s not
good!” Well, generally, that’s the
case, but with PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT THE MUSICAL, that idiom is not
true.
PRISCILLA isn’t intended
to be a great message musical.
NEXT TO NORMAL or CHORUS LINE it isn’t. What it is, is a show with 492 costumes, yes, close to 500
costumes, cast members singing from small platforms which drop in and out of
the fly gallery, a cast of muscle bound guys (It’s Raining Men), a full sized bus which maneuvers around the
stage on a turntable, and a rockin’ musical score which includes such gems as What’s Love Got to Do With It?, I Say a Little Prayer, True Colors, and I Will Survive. Oh,
incidentally, there is a slight story line which showcases the theme of
acceptance and should satisfy those who want their theatrical experiences to be
meaningful.
The production is so
grand that it had to moved to the State Theatre because not all the costumes
and sets could be accommodated at the smaller Palace Theatre facility, where it
was originally scheduled to be staged.
The show, which is now
touring the US, UK, Ireland, Italy and Brazil, has a book by Aussie’s Stephan
Elliott and Allan Scott, and uses well-known pop songs as its score. The music was not written specifically
for this show, but are a series of well known tunes covering everything from
rock a billy, to pop rock, to opera.
The musical is based on
the 1994 cult hit movie, THE ADVENTURES OF PRISCILLA, QUEEN OF THE DESERT, and
centers on two drag queens and a transsexual who travel from Sydney to Alice
Springs, in the center of the Australian desert via a bus of many colors, dubbed
Priscilla. During the journey, the
three meet up with a cast of outback characters who do everything from admire
to threaten them.
Side-lesson: drag queens are men who dress as women
to entertain. They are not
necessarily homosexual, may even not want to be women, but dance, sing, lip
sync, and dress in exaggerated female garb as their means of artistic
expression.
The musical opened in
Australia in 2006, debuted in 2009 in London, winning costume design
recognitions in the British Olivier Awards and won the Tony for Best Costumes
in its 2011 Broadway run.
The touring production is
a cacophony of bright visuals and
sounds. It is nearly impossible to
not bounce and sway to the loud pulsing music. Though it’s often difficult to hear the words to the songs,
over the stomping sounds, the songs are so familiar and the meaning of the
words are generally unnecessary to push along the story line, that it matters
little. This is a heart beating,
fun, fantasy, that requires little from the audience except allowing everything
to carry you along. Don’t let
thinking get in your way. Just relish
the singers, dancers, toned abs, excellent musical arrangements, and
over-the-top smorgasbord of treats.
The trio of leads, two
drag queens (Tick and Adam) and Bernadette, a faded former queen of drag, who has transgendered from male to
female, take to a bus when Adam’s former wife invites him to come visit his now
seven-year old son and perform at her casino in Alice Springs.
Wade McCollum, who
obviously spends most of his time at the gym, dances and sings well, making for
a correctly flamboyant Tick. Bryan
West, as the most macho of the trio, sings well, but is a little less talented
in the dancing department. Scott
Willis creates a properly frustrated yet gallant transgendered aging
Bernadette. The rest of the
cast exhausts itself by putting out full effort in multi-roles.
CAPSULE JUDGEMENT: PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT THE MUSICAL is a rocking enjoyable
evening of theater that is mostly glitz, costumes and sets, encompassing famous
songs and a slight story line.
Tickets for PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT THE MUSICAL,
which runs through January 27 at the State Theatre, can be ordered by calling
216-241-6000 or going to www.playhousesquare.org.
