Just in time for Wicked: For Good, the O.G. Glinda, Kristin Chenoweth, is back on Broadway in the new musical, The Queen of Versailles. And that’s not the only Oz-ian connection with this show, based on Lauren Greenfield’s award-winning 2012 documentary portrait of big spenders Jackie and David Siegel. Wicked composer and lyricist Stephen Schwartz wrote the words and musics for Queen’s tunes as well.
That’s plenty of royal pedigree for one show, but critics are deeply mixed (and trending negative) on whether The Queen of Versailles owns its crown. Writing in the The New York Times, Lauren Collins-Hughes is a loyal subject, awarding the show a coveted “Critic’s Pick” designation. “The muchness is the the point in Stephen Schwartz and [book writer] Lindsay Ferrentino’s smart and sparkling new musical,” she writes, going on to describe Chenoweth’s performance as “winsome” and “funny.”
“The Queen of Versailles is more than an entertaining biomusical with a hummable score,” Collins-Hughes adds. “Directed by Michael Arden, it’s also a sociological fairy tale — the kind in which flawed people lose their way, and something terribly sad happens irreversibly.”
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Variety’s Aramide Tinubu is ready to say “Down with the Queen” is a withering pan. “Greenfield’s dazzling assessment of greed, consumption and the American dream doesn’t translate on the stage,” she states, going on to credit certain elements of the show, including the scenic design and the cast. “Yet the play’s positive components do not make up for its faults. Broadway is the wrong medium for this story. Musicalizing the story does little to ground the audience in Jackie’s world and instead pulls and stretches the tale, when the themes alone could speak for themselves.”
“Additionally, adding the musical element further bastardizes this tale,” Tinubu continues. “Except for ‘Caviar Dreams,’ the third song in Act 1, none of the other selections are particularly memorable. Though the opening act is fairly intriguing, by the second act, the nearly three-hour-long performance began to drag, especially as the show’s tone shifted drastically.”
Entertainment Weekly’s Dalton Ross is of a similar mindset when it comes to Schwartz’s music and the show surrounding them. “The songs are just one of many problems plaguing an identity crisis of a show that doesn’t quite seem to know what it wants to be,” he writes. “Much like the ill-fated Tammy Faye from last year, Versailles toggles between different modus operandi — in this case, campy comedic sendup, surface level social commentary on income inequality, dark family drama, and French historical farce — and does none of them particularly well. The result often feels like tonal whiplash as the production attempts to scratch several itches without truly satisfying any.”
At least one more critic is willing to be one of Chenwoeth’s loyal subjects, though. Bob Verini of the New York Stage Review awards The Queen of Versailles four stars, writing: “It’s two musicals, a pointed satire that sits, sometimes uneasily, next to a sympathetic portrait of an American striver. What holds them together is the powerhouse performance of Kristin Chenoweth, triumphantly reunited with Wicked composer-lyricist Stephen Schwartz. This lavishly overstuffed, irresistibly entertaining confection is impossible to imagine without her.”
“Chenoweth embraces all her character’s contradictions as if they didn’t exist, translating her own belief in herself into Jackie’s,” he adds. “Unforgettable, the both of ‘em.” Time will tell if Broadway audiences attending Queen of Versailles will consider themselves changed… for good.