This is a thumbs-up review, but before I explain that positive assessment, I must write about what left me absolutely gobsmacked even before the curtain went up on the new musical \u201cThe Queen of Versailles,\u201d which opened Sunday at the St. James Theatre.<\/p>\n
At the weekend preview I attended, the audience resembled a retired hookers\u2019 convention at Mar-a-Lago. These were middle-aged women who took their fashion cues from \u201cRuPaul\u2019s Drag Race\u201d and, with their fake boobs and Botox-pumped faces, made a tragically unsuccessful attempt to look 20, 30 years younger than their real age.<\/p>\n
In 2008, when the first \u201cSex and the City\u201d movie came out, fans of the long-running HBO series dressed up like Sarah Jessica Parker, right down to Carrie Bradshaw\u2019s Jimmy Choos. Something similar is going on with \u201cQueen\u201d at the St. James. Fans of Jackie Siegel, subject of the 2012 documentary \u201cThe Queen of Versailles,\u201d showed up at preview performances to replicate that billionaire\u2019s surgically enhanced body and streetwalker fashion. Actually, the costumes (by Christian Cowan) that Kristin Chenoweth wears on stage in the title role are far less gaudy and booty-revealing than what occupied many of the seats in the orchestra at the St. James. At show\u2019s end, after the obligatory standing ovation, there were even loud chants of \u201cJackie! Jackie! Jackie!\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n These women had just witnessed a very different musical from the one I saw.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Queen of Versailles\u201d has already been dubbed the MAGA Musical. The book by Lindsey Ferrentino and the songs by Stephen Schwartz cleverly channel Siegel\u2019s aesthetic that too much is never enough. Here is a living ATM machine that spends an obscene amount of money because, as Jackie proudly explains, \u201cI can!\u201d<\/p>\n On a trip to France, after she has married the self-proclaimed Time Share King David Siegel (F. Murray Abraham), Jackie visits Versailles. Stepping into the Hall of Mirrors, she sees herself magnified into infinity, as well as eternity, and decides to re-create Louis XIV\u2019s palace in Orlando, Florida.<\/p>\n Ferrentino\u2019s book makes the inspired choice to open the show in that court of the Sun King (the enchanting Pablo David Laucerica) and Marie Antoinette (the imperious Cassondra James), and under Michael Arden\u2019s always fluid direction, \u201cThe Queen of Versailles\u201d flips back and forth between the old French royalty, who ended up being guillotined, and the new American power couple, who get hit with the 2008 economic meltdown. Before that financial calamity happens, Jackie takes a let-them-snort-caviar approach to life.<\/p>\n This production\u2019s continual return to the real Versailles provides some much needed visual splendor (scenic design by Dane Laffrey), since the Orlando Versailles is under construction for much of the musical\u2019s running time of two hours and 30 minutes. Construction sites aren\u2019t pretty, and neither is this one on stage. For some reason never explained, Jackie and David Siegel install the world\u2019s largest TV screen at their Orlando Versailles at the very beginning of its construction. It is this screen that envisions the many locales of Jackie\u2019s rise from teenage Red Lobster waitress to abused spouse and mother to Mrs. Florida beauty contest winner to the suddenly rich spouse of David Siegel. Or as she puts it, \u201cOnly in America can you become a wife, a billionaire and a Jew all in one day!\u201d<\/p>\n That terrific one-liner aside, Ferrentino\u2019s book makes Jackie narrate too much of this journey. Chenoweth\u2019s performance, Schwartz\u2019s songs and Arden\u2019s direction make the trip worthwhile, fortunately.<\/p>\n Ferrentino has the advantage that the real Jackie Siegel provides the \u201cQueen\u201d script with its best lines. And it is that uncommon wit that makes this bizarre woman\u2019s story worth watching, and also turns \u201cThe Queen of Versailles\u201d into that rarest of theatrical events: a genuine musical tragedy. \u201cGypsy\u201d comes to mind. As with Rose, Jackie is both super smart and terribly driven. Both characters are woefully misguided in their ambition, since both are addicted to fame.<\/p>\n The \u201cGypsy\u201d comparison is interesting for another reason. Stephen Sondheim wrote the lyrics for that 1959 classic, Jule Styne the music. However, when Sondheim went on to write both the lyrics and the music in the following decades for his now-classic shows, he did not follow in the easy melodic footsteps of Styne. Although it is forgotten today, many critics (especially at the New York Times) lamented that Sondheim didn\u2019t continue to provide lyrics for Styne, whom they considered the far greater composer. It was Stephen Schwartz who picked up Styne\u2019s far more traditional Broadway torch with the hits \u201cGodspell,\u201d \u201cPippin\u201d and, of course, \u201cWicked.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019d argue that Schwartz\u2019s more accomplished scores can be found in the far less performed \u201cThe Baker\u2019s Wife\u201d (1976) and \u201cS\u00e9ance on a Wet Afternoon\u201d (2009). And now \u201cThe Queen of Versailles.\u201d<\/p>\n To continue the \u201cGypsy\u201d comparison: despite its classic status, the musical about stripper Gypsy Rose Lee\u2019s mother has never enjoyed a long run on Broadway, neither in its original production nor its many revivals. The heroine Rose is too compromised and complicated, and doesn\u2019t provide the story with a typical happy ending. Neither does Jackie. Rose turns her daughter into a stripper. Jackie uses her daughter\u2019s death by suicide to shill for even more fame and wealth.<\/p>\n No doubt the women chanting \u201cJackie! Jackie! Jackie!\u201d at \u201cQueen\u201d saw a different female character. Or maybe they had fallen in love with Kristin Chenoweth, who exudes such charm and charisma that even Jackie\u2019s most appalling statements of white privilege and unbridled capitalism lose some of their shocking edge. Her piping Barbie Doll soprano remains as strong and individual sounding as it did when she played Glinda in \u201cWicked\u201d over 20 years ago.<\/p>\n That character\u2019s \u201cPopular\u201d is now a commercial for an Olay body cream. The second act quartet \u201cLittle Houses\u201d in \u201cQueen\u201d will one day make a great realtor ad. Schwartz\u2019s music doesn\u2019t so much challenge as it pleases with its infectious pop lyricism tinged with the occasional nod to C&W.<\/p>\n David Siegel gives his wife precisely what she wants because he can afford her extravagances. When he can no longer afford them after the 2008 crash, he goes from adoringly generous to chronically stingy in an instant, and F. Murray Abraham makes that flip-flop utterly believable. Far more conventionally sympathetic are Jackie\u2019s Filipino nanny (Melody Butiu), her daughter Victoria (Nina White) and her niece Jonquil (Tatum Grace Hopkins), who quickly becomes more Jackie\u2019s child than Victoria ever was. They\u2019re all victims in very different ways of Jackie\u2019s extreme materialism, and one of the show\u2019s slyer visuals is how much this mother-aunt wants to be younger than the two teenagers living in her house.<\/p>\n Ferrentino\u2019s book could use some judicious cutting. There are missteps of overstatement: when Jackie gets her comeuppance, no one needs to see Jonquil figuratively pissing all over her aunt\u2019s misfortunes at show\u2019s end. Also, there are references to the \u201cnew ballroom\u201d and the \u201cEast wing,\u201d as if the reappearance of Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette isn\u2019t already shoveling the parallels on a bit thick.<\/p>\n The post \u2018The Queen of Versailles\u2019 Broadway Review: Kristin Chenoweth and Stephen Schwartz Reunite for a MAGA Musical Nightmare<\/a> appeared first on TheWrap<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is a thumbs-up review, but before I explain that positive assessment, I must write about what left me absolutely gobsmacked even before the curtain went up on the new musical \u201cThe Queen of Versailles,\u201d which opened Sunday at the St. James Theatre. At the weekend preview I attended, the audience resembled a retired hookers\u2019 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2143131,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[370741,390279,375181,390281,344989,377970,390282],"class_list":["post-2150663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-david-siegel","tag-jackie-siegel","tag-kristin-chenoweth","tag-queen-of-versailles","tag-stephen-schwartz","tag-stephen-sondheim","tag-versailles"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/7-Movies-You-Didnt-Know-Were-Adapted-From-Stephen-King.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2150663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2150663"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2150663\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2150664,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2150663\/revisions\/2150664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2143131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2150663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2150663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2150663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/div>\n