Priscilla Queen of the Desert

I've had too much time to think about this show. Granted, only two days, but it's been stuck in my mind, and I feel like this is going to turn into a marathon of tortured metaphors. Let's start with this one:

Imagine you're at a slot machine and the first four columns line up as cherries. You've won a thousand dollars, and you're super-excited. Then the fifth line drops and it's...right next to the cherries. You can't complain because you just won a thousand bucks. But knowing how close you came to the jackpot will aggravate you every time you think about it.

Which is, predictably, to say that Priscilla comes soooo close to being an outright bonanza. It's way to much of a good time to complain about, but it will also piss you off for not being even better than it is.

Anyone who has seen the movie knows it's about two drag queens and a trans woman on a bus trip across Australia so that Tick/Mitzi can meet his six-year-old son. Don't think too much about the fact that this means he spent six years avoiding it--you won't be able to hear your thoughts through the blaring music anyway. And that right there is the problem with this show--the sensitivity and thoughtfulness of the movie gets almost completely overwhelmed by the show's glitz and glamour. The complicated gender and sexual identity of a drag queen father? The surprising casual cruelty of you drag queen Adam/Felicia towards older trans woman Bernadette? The insecurity roiling under Adam's blazing projection of confidence? There's no time for that. We have too many disco songs to get through. And let me tell you something, when I (of all people) am complaining that there need to be more breaks between drag queen disco numbers...honey, there's a problem. As Felicia and Bernadette, Nick Adams are stepping into the pumps of Guy Pearce and Terence Stamp. It's an unenviable position, especially the latter as I consider Stamp's performance in the movie nothing shy of brilliant. But they handle the material with aplomb, especially when given moments to actually shine. Perversely, the higher my expectations were for each performer, the better they were fulfilled. Sheldon is the star of this show. As Mitzi, Will Swenson had to replace...whatshisface. The one I couldn't remember. And yet his is the most uneven of the three lead performances--tentative, a little uncomfortable, and just ever so slightly off. He has a wonderful vulnerability and rips into "Macarthur Park" with gleeful abandon, but it just isn't as wholly inhabited a performance as his compatriots'.

Contributing the the sound and fury of the show distracting you from its strange shallowness is an overbearing sound design. Out of about 28 songs, there are only four delivered by less than six people. More than half have the full company singing. Even the penultimate number with the three queens on a bare stage celebrating their friendship to the tune of Pat Benatar's classic "We Belong" is assisted by the entire company of offstage voices. Yes, we're very close friends who need each other, the number seems to say, so let's have two dozen people you can't see sing at you about how this is so. We just lose the personal to the point that when Tick sings to his son and when Bernadette sings (half of, before everyone else jumps in) "True Colors," it's almost a shocking reminder of what the sound of one voice singing is.

Now, this is all very complain-y of me, but I focus on the negatives because, again, so much is right that this should have been perfection. The opening has a Greek chorus of "Divas" literally descending from above to sing "It's Raining Men." I was clapping like a slap-happy 12-year-old and no one had even started singing. And I was not alone. The costumes are To. Die. For. And these bitches know how to work a quick change. A funeral scene early on (played for laughs, of course) featured a dozen or so costumes that in and of themselves should win the Tony for Best Costumes. All I can say is that I can't believe someone beat Lady Gaga to a hair crucifix. "Go West" is one of the most rousing production numbers I've seen in ages. And the famous bus-top windblown lipsych to La Traviata's "Sempre Libre" is a jaw-dropping stunner. Very simple and completely beautiful, it is a three minute course in the potential artistry of a lip-synch.

There are other quibbles. Some strange and useless audience participation opens the second act (despite the hands of two cast members on my shoulder, I remained steadfastly focused in the other direction and thus missed my chance to have a brief hoedown on a Broadway stage--I'll live, but I do actually regret not going up). And "True Colors" was actually substituted for "Both Sides Now" between the British version and now. And let me tell you, I may love me some Cyndi Lauper, but "Both Sides Now" would not only be more appropriate to the scene, it is flat out the better song of the two.

I admit, my experience didn't benefit from the two loud beasts behind me who even sang along at one point. In the THIRD row! If this was a real drag show, those bitches would have been stiletto-slapped. Instead, they only suffered my angry glares and mumbled epithets. That music may have been blaring, but I could still hear those cows chewing their gum with mouths wide open.

Long story somewhat shorter, I had a blast. And I will likely go back. But I will always be a little disappointed that Priscilla isn't the show that it could have been. It just came so damn close to perfection that missing seems a near-tragedy.

Side note: I had very low-stakes goals with this blog. My hope was for ten follower. I'm up to nine! So tell your...friend! :)