Theater overview
DEATH BECOMES HER
Two hours and half-hour, with one intermission. On the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, 205 W. forty sixth Road.
There’s a miracle elixir within the campy musical “Death Becomes Her,” which opened Thursday evening on the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre.
I don’t imply the nuclear-pink liquid that gives everlasting youth in alternate for changing into the strolling lifeless, however the comedy chops of stars Megan Hilty and Jennifer Simard.
Merely put, they kill it.
Because the pair of envious, vengeful, demented and ultimately deceased narcissists initially performed by Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn, the actresses wring jokes out of each letter and semicolon of Marco Pennette’s catty e book.
No second is wasted — and Simard and Hilty are such no-holds-barred risk-takers that they themselves may very properly be wasted.
Their warped characters from Robert Zemeckis’ culty 1992 film are the glamorous actress Madeline Ashton (Hilty) and dowdy author Helen Sharp (Simard), aggressive frenemies obsessive about savagely one-upping one another.
So, it might appear, are Simard and Hilty. The sport pair duke it out for amusing, and the group laps up their verbal and precise jabs as if it’s a WWE match. (Though a fast scan round the home would counsel that no person at “Death Becomes Her” has a lot as unintentionally turned on a WWE match).
The viewers’s howls, particularly throughout the vastly superior first act, assist distract from a slippery scenario for an enormous new musical: The songs by Julia Mattison and Noel Carey are mediocre. And there are far too lots of them.
Lyrics are sometimes intelligent and naughty, however melody is solid apart in favor of vocal acrobatics. The only memorable tune, the principle theme, is just hummable as a result of it’s a lifeless ringer for the darkish title music of “Kiss of the Spider Woman.”
This present’s most entertaining quantity is the razzmatazz second one. Helen and her physician fiancé Ernest (Christopher Sieber, good as ever, however underused) go see Madeline within the Broadway present “Me! Me! Me!” and Hilty belts out a foolish ditty referred to as “For the Gaze,” as in, “I do it for the gaze.”
If I have to let you know why that’s humorous, “Death Becomes Her” is certainly not the present for you.
Quickly, imply Madeline steals Ernest from Helen and sends her hurtling right into a psych ward.
Ten years later, the spurned ex has mysteriously blossomed right into a bombshell who graces purple carpets, whereas the previous starlet has let herself go and is trapped in a loveless, booze-soaked marriage.
At a celebration, a smooth-talking gent notices Madeline spiraling and fingers her the enterprise card of Viola Van Horn (Michelle Williams of Future’s Little one, deliciously dry). Viola, he says, can clear up all her issues.
Hilty, bubbly and barbaric, explodes with a “Rose’s Turn” referred to as “Falling Apart,” after which Madeline is off to Viola’s mansion to drink her magic brew. Abracadabra! Instantly, she appears 20 years youthful, with luscious hair, tight pores and skin and the radiant glow of youth.
Too unhealthy she’s additionally a corpse with no pulse — identical to the hysterical Simard’s maniacal Helen, who’s hellbent on destroying her greatest good friend.
Zemeckis’ movie, like lots of his motion pictures, was made largely to push the boundaries of know-how. Streep and Hawn’s physique contortions and gnarly accidents received the Oscar for Greatest Visible Results.
Director Christopher Gattelli finds nifty methods of nodding to that legacy onstage. Utilizing dance, drag-queen-style physique doubles and illusions, the appropriately over-the-top manufacturing recreates a decapitation, an belly cavity attributable to a shotgun, and, most famously, the 360-degree head flip.
Since Act 2 narratively doesn’t have as a lot drive or emotion as the primary, and the songs are nonetheless mush, Gattelli ought to have included much more physique horror schtick. The Demi Moore movie “The Substance” is a lesson in how upping the gore ante can rev up a narrative.
However every time the fabric sags, like getting old pores and skin, its sensational stars inject the present with new vibrancy.
Even when the musical doesn’t have a discernible heartbeat, Hilty and Simard guarantee “Death Becomes Her” stays enjoyable and fabulous.
