Priscilla Blooms on Broadway

I’ll get the bitchiness out of the way first. I have two caveats about the Broadway musical Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. One is just a personal bugaboo that frosts my personal gonads; and that is bringing audience members on stage to dance around clumsily and make idiots of themselves. This happens at the beginning of act two and totally brought me down from the cloud I was floating on throughout the rest period called intermission. Yeah, cloud. My theater companion said it best, “How could anyone not like this show?” It’s a corker…but details to follow. My second criticism is a matter of staging and I think could be corrected (opening night is March 20 so pay attention you guys!).

One of the transcendent moments of the movie (upon which this musical is based), for me at least, was the triumphant climb of Ayers Rock in the Australian outback by three drag queens in all their costumed and coifed glory (“a cock, in a frock, on a rock” is the rightfully oft-quoted line), high heeled pumps and all. Clunky symbolism, I’ll admit but, hey, it got to me in 1994. I was waiting for this moment on stage and, unfortunately, I didn’t immediately recognize it when it came. They’ve tried it solely with tricky lighting and it simply doesn’t work. Surely, kids, you can do better in a show that has everything else right, both as a dynamic work of Broadway art and modern theatrical technology, a combination that makes the show sing.

And sing it does! Frankly, Priscilla is just about the best thing I’ve seen in many a moon (which is, by the way, portrayed in the stage-sky by a slightly disguised disco ball). The musical score is not original, having been culled from a variety of pop songs whose melodies, I realize now, got stuck in our heads when they first came out over the last couple of decades. And, somehow, it all works! I had my most arch pooh-pooh comments all prepared but they got blown away by the sheer energy of the cast, the incredible costumes and the performances of the three leads (Will Swenson, Tony Sheldon, Nick Adams). Oh, there were moments of gay-bashing angst and attempts at heartstring pulling but the slam-bang pacing and high energy performances overcame all obstacles. If you don’t know the plot, “Priscilla” is the name of the bus in which our three stalwarts cross the Australian outback from Sidney to Alice Springs, and what a piece of stagecraft that full-sized (well, they make it seem full-sized) bus becomes.

Despite missing out on my Ayers Rock movie moment there were two instances of inner-hysteria I suffered from the stage show that the movie didn’t have. A lump-in-the-throat sentimental moment when the newly-met father and son sing “You Were Always on My Mind” and a falling-in-the-aisle production number when the three drag queens did what would be a half-hour casino show in ever-accelerating pace in a super-silly five minutes. And, of course, there were those damn dancing cupcakes as icing. But maybe I’ve said too much…

Not liking this show is not an option. If you don’t like it your barnacles need tending to; if not major surgery then at least some heavy moisturizing procedures.

In honor of attending Priscilla we had our pre-show dinner at the ersatz Australian restaurant Outback Steakhouse on West 23rd St. There’s nothing like putting a shrimp on the barbie and a having a finger-greasy blooming onion to carry out the evening’s theme. Unfortunately, we ran out of time so we had to forego having coffee and sharing the featured post-dinner special, a stack of waffles which formed the basis of a gigantic, sloppy strawberry shortcake; truly a queen of the dessert.
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Update March 21, 2011: The show opened to mixed reviews. What hard hearts some critics have.