Broadway review by Adam Feldman
Ver-sigh. The biggest new musical of the fall arrives on a wave of high hopes, thanks to its promising main assets: music and lyrics by the veteran hitmaker Stephen Schwartz, in his first original Broadway score since Wicked; a starring role for Kristin Chenoweth, one of musical theater’s great leading ladies, as the Florida socialite Jackie Siegel, a walking symbol of American excess; the creative talents of director Michael Arden and set designer Dane Laffrey, who have been on quite a roll; and, in Lauren Greenfield’s 2012 documentary about the Siegel family, a source with rich potential for adaptation. Like the 90,000–square-foot, $100-million palace that the Siegels are determined to build for themselves in Orlando, The Queen of Versailles is nothing if not ambitious. But like that same palace, it also feels misguided and very much still under construction.
The Queen of Versailles | Photograph: Julieta Cervantes
The underlying problem is that QOV doesn’t have a clear POV. Greenfield’s film is always alert to the grotesque disconnect between the Siegels’ lives of wasteful extravagance and the financial struggles of the employees in their orbit, including the nannies who care for their eight children. It is also a cautionary tale: Midway through the movie, the financial crisis of 2008 pulls the ornate rug out from under the Siegels’ empire and plunges Jackie’s future into uncertainty. What happens to a trophy wife when the shelf collapses? Can she live in the lack of luxury?
In this riches-to-rags context, the bubbly and bosomy Jackie came off fairly well: clueless and spoiled, but also loving to her kids and personally generous to friends. But a lot has changed in the 13 years since the movie was released. The Siegel fortune rebounded, construction on the house resumed, the Siegels became public advocates for Donald Trump and Jackie—now less charming, more preening and self-aware—starred in a reality-TV show, The Queen of Versailles Reigns Again, that lasted one season. It hasn’t all been rosy for the Siegels; the family suffered a tragic loss in 2015. But because their downfall felt like comeuppance, their comeback has been hard to root for.
The Queen of Versailles | Photograph: Julieta Cervantes
In adapting this story into a musical, Schwartz and book writer Lindsey Ferrentino have expanded backward and forward from the period covered in the film. A good deal of the first half is devoted to Jackie’s rise, from her teenage years as Jackie Mallery in upstate New York (where she earned a degree in engineering) through her abusive first marriage, her 1993 victory in a Florida beauty pageant and her ascension to the ranks of the ultrarich. The downturn of 2008 hits just before intermission, but that can’t keep Jackie down. “Things are looking hopeless, but we all know it’s a fact,” she sings. “In America, you can have a second act.” It’s an Act One finale in the spunky tradition of “Don’t Rain on My Parade,” and that’s indicative of the show’s main mistake: It overestimates the audience’s investment in her.
“That’s what’s so amazing about America!” Jackie says. “You don’t have to be born great. Or have greatness thrust upon you. But you do gotta get out there and thrust yourself upon greatness. And just keep on thrustin’!” The greatness she thrusts herself upon—in keeping with this lap-dance theory of success—is David Siegel, the so-called “Time-Share King,” a rapacious billionaire thirty years her senior who treats her like a pet. David is played by F. Murray Abraham, and if you are wondering what F. Murray Abraham is doing in a Broadway musical, the answer is: not much. (The adaptation’s focus on Jackie consigns David to a peripheral role.)
The Queen of Versailles | Photograph: Julieta Cervantes
The outlandishly tacky Jackie—who clutches an adorable dog and favors pink miniskirts, sometimes with matching fur—is the type of real-life person who tends to get called a character. Chenoweth brings her considerable powers to bear in portraying her: charisma, energy, comic timing, a dazzling voice of many colors. “Our main character does what America teaches: work harder, want bigger, never stop,” notes a foreword to the script, and most of The Queen of Versailles envisions Jackie as a variation on the classic Broadway striver: a spunky go-getter looking to satisfy her “champagne wishes and caviar dreams” and live larger than her scrappy-but-happy parents (an underused Stephen DeRosa and Isabel Keating). But we know where the story is going. Despite Chenoweth’s immense appeal—or perhaps, in part, because of it—it’s unclear if and why we are meant to care about a MAGA billionaire who is temporarily reduced to a lifestyle that most people would be thrilled to enjoy.
Meanwhile, The Queen of Versailles periodically pulls back to suggest a larger context. We meet the family’s Filipina nanny Sofia (Melody Butiu), who hasn’t seen her own children in years, and David’s business associate Gary (Greg Hildreth)—who is also, less consequentially, David’s neglected son from a previous marriage. The pernicious effects of shallowness are felt by the family’s eldest daughter, Victoria (the excellent Nina White), who has body-image issues; the corrupting power of wealth is reflected in the arc of Jackie’s niece, Jonquil (Tatum Grace Hopkins), who comes to live with them. Most pointedly: A recurring framing device compares the Siegels to the bewigged and brocaded aristocracy of prerevolutionary France, whose decadence is destined for the guillotine. Even as it teases bigger questions of wealth inequality, however, the musical spends most of its time answering a question no one wanted to ask: What if Elle Woods were kind of a nightmare?
The Queen of Versailles | Photograph: Julieta Cervantes
The Queen of Versailles wants to have its cake and let them eat it, too. Not until the very end does the musical sharpen its various elements into a point, and even then the focus is on Jackie’s personal feelings, not the system she embodies. The final solo, which Chenoweth nails, gives Jackie more soul than the rest of the show has suggested, but it is undeniably well crafted, as is the rest of the score. In his lyrics, Schwartz has particular fun with rhymes for proper names: “George W.’s President now / Thanks to David Siegel,” sings Gary. “I’d share the plot, but it might not / Have been exactly legal,” adds his father. (Elsewhere, ”Jackie Mallery” is paired with “minimum wage salary” and “Susquehanna” with “Americana.”) Compositionally, Schwartz plays with genres, with help from orchestrator John Clancy: The French court is baroque, of course; Victoria’s standout first-act lament, “Pretty Wins,” has a contemporary musical-theater sound, while David’s “Trust Me” sits in a more old-fashioned Great American Songbook mode. Jackie’s songs make good use of Chenoweth’s range: She uses her punchy, twangy lower register for Jackie’s regular-gal numbers and leaps into her lovely upper soprano when Jackie is feeling regal.
Like the rest of the show, however, the score doesn’t quite cohere; it feels like less than the sum of its parts. Arden’s direction provides good small moments but can’t provide an overall attitude that the material lacks, and the production’s look is inconsistent: Christian Cowan’s costumes are great fun, but Laffrey’s TV-set design relies too heavily on a large mobile screen, and the final marble staircase looks a mess at the bottom. The Yiddish word for The Queen of Versailles is ongepotchket: tacky and busy, with components that might be fine alone but don’t come together. If you want to see it, you should probably see it soon: Like all those unlucky French courtiers, this show seems headed for the chopping block.
The Queen of Versailles. St. James Theatre (Broadway). Music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz. Book by Lindsey Ferrentino. Directed by Michael Arden. With Kristin Chenoweth, F. Murray Abraham, Nina White, Tatum Grace Hopkins, Greg Hildreth, Melody Butiu, Stephen DeRosa, Isabel Keating. Running time: 2hrs 30mins. One intermission.
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The Queen of Versailles | Photograph: Julieta Cervantes