The Hollywood Reporter - 31.07.2019

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THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 73 JULY 31, 2019

MATTHEW MURPHY

Theater

Tam Mutu plays the wealthy Duke of Monroth, who

invests in a Parisian cabaret in exchange for leading

lady Satine’s company.

Baz Luhrmann’s postmodern riff on the

Hollywood movie musical gets amped

for the stage in a production that’s

by turns exhausting and entertaining

By David Rooney

Moulin Rouge!

The Musical

The general contours of the story

remain unchanged. With his Belle

Epoque boite risking bankruptcy,

impresario Harold Zidler (Danny

Burstein) urges Satine (Karen Olivo)

to ply her courtesan trade on the rich

Duke of Monroth (Tam Mutu) to secure

the club an urgent cash infusion.

At the same time, penniless com-

poser Christian (Aaron Tveit), an Ohio

transplant in Paris, forms a friendship

with Left Bank artist Toulouse-

Lautrec (Sahr Ngaujah, terrific) and

Argentinian gigolo Santiago (Ricky

Rojas). They enlist his songwriting

skills on a musical they hope to have

produced at the Moulin Rouge.

In scenes of goofy mistaken-identity

comedy, Satine receives Christian in

her chambers, believing him to be the

Duke. While she writhes sensually,

Christian labors under the impres-

sion he’s auditioning material for her;

before they even get through a chorus

of Elton John’s “Your Song,” their lov-

ing pact is written in the Montmartre

skyline in a cursive L’A m o u r sign.

The pair keep their union hidden

from the Duke, who demands total

possession of both the club and Satine

in exchange for his investment. And

while Christian risks a broken heart or

a nasty dispatch by the Duke’s thugs,

Satine faces an incurable case of

consumption.

Book writer John Logan hasn’t done

much to fortify the material dramati-

cally, and Timbers is more at ease in

splashy set pieces than intimate

exchanges; the story feels even fluffier

than it did in the film. But the accom-

plished actors eventually steer the

show where it needs to go in climactic

scenes that are genuinely affecting, if a

tad abrupt in their outcome.

For many, the volume of hits incor-

porated will be sufficient reward. The

fluidity of the work by music supervi-

sor Justin Levine makes him as much

a creative force as Timbers on the

project. In addition to songs from the

movie, the show dips into recent chart

successes from Lady Gaga, Beyoncé and

others. Whether this works in service

of the story, the barrage of tunes is

a blast, the complexity of the musi-

cal collages astonishing. Meanwhile,

the instances when characters reveal

something of themselves in a com-

plete song provide a welcome breather.

(Among those are Satine psyching

herself up to be the Duke’s plaything by

belting out “Firework.”)

Contributions are quite solid all

around. Choreographer Sonya Tayeh

puts the dancers through their vig-

orous paces as costumer Catherine

Zuber’s vividly colored frilled skirts fly.

Unlike Nicole Kidman and Ewan

McGregor, Olivo and Tveit both have

powerful pipes. Tveit has never been

better than as the wide-eyed lover and

dreamer, while the luminous Olivo

reads as somewhat more mature,

which works for a character who has

been around the block. The slightly

weak link of the main cast is Mutu’s

Duke, who exudes only cartoon menace

and wan charisma. But, Moulin Rouge!

being Moulin Rouge!, even he gets a

doozy of a Rolling Stones medley.

Moulin Rouge! was Baz Luhrmann at

his most baroque, a pop-cultural mag-

pie molding kitsch, cool and cliche into

a rhapsodic dream; the 2001 screen col-

lision of soaring romance and dazzling

artifice helped resuscitate the movie

musical. Stage director Alex Timbers

and his team on this delirious theatri-

cal reinvention take those Luhrmann

impulses and run with them, crafting

a gaudy, gorgeous jukebox pastiche in

which eye-popping spectacle, energy

and musical mashups provide the

padding for a featherweight plot. The

result can be tiring, but it virtually

defies you not to be entertained.

There is no question as to where

the play’s reported $28 million bud-

get was spent. Music rights alone

must have cost a fortune, while the

sumptuous design (Derek McLane’s

set is a fantasia in hot reds and pinks)

induces whiplash. Massive box office

during previews and effusive audience

response suggest Moulin Rouge! is a

crowd-pleaser, though it will need to

sustain that momentum to hit profit.

VENUE

Al Hirschfeld Theatre

(New York)

CAST

Karen Olivo,

Aaron Tveit,

Danny Burstein,

Sahr Ngaujah

BOOK

John Logan

DIRECTOR

Alex Timbers