On Stage: “The Queen of Versailles”
Photos: Julieta Cervantes
The Queen of Versailles
The good news is that Kristen Chenoweth is back on Broadway. The bad news is that her new musical “The Queen of Versailles” is an all-too-timely tribute to hypergamy, or ‘marrying up’ … a.k.a.: an ode to those brazen women known as gold diggers who have assumed power and influence in the Trump era.
Based on Lauren Greenfield’s award-winning 2012 documentary of the same name, it chronicles the lifestyle of obscenely rich and infamous Jacqueline “Jackie” Siegel, the socialite who built America’s biggest McMansion, inspired by the Palace of Versailles, the epitome of conspicuous consumption, symbolic of everything that’s wrong with current American culture.
Beginning with a lavish prologue depicting Louis XIV and his 17th century French courtiers, book-writer Lindsay Ferrentino traces plucky Jackie’s calculated climb from blue-collar Endwell, New York, to becoming a single mother and enduring extensive breast augmentation without anesthesia.
Equipped with a bodacious body and “Caviar Dreams,” Jackie married much older David Siegel (F. Murray Abraham), known as the “Timeshare King,” quipping, “Only in America can you become a wife, a billionaire and a Jew — all in one day.”
Apparently Jackie had eight children — although only Victoria (Nina White) and ‘adopted’ Jonquil (Tatum Grace Hopkins) are depicted. As Jackie’s tragic firstborn, White scores with “Pretty Wins,” the show’s most memorable song.
Undaunted by the 2008 financial crash and the death of her teenage daughter from a drug overdose in 2015, extravagant Jackie continues building and re-building her 90,000-square-foot gilded colossus outside of Orlando, Florida.
There were high hopes for this shallow musical which reunites Chenoweth with “Wicked” composer Stephen Schwartz under the direction of Michael Arden (“Maybe Happy Ending”), but the gold dust disappears somewhere between the burial of a dead lizard and the hawking of rhinestone-studded “American Royalty” merchandise.
It’s certainly not the fault of grandiose set-video designer Diane Laffrey, gaudy costumer Christian Cowan, glistening lighting designer Natasha Katz, hair and wig designer Cookie Jordan.
People magazine noted that F. Murray Abraham always brings his “Amadeus” Oscar to work; here, it’s hidden somewhere in Act Two’s ‘yard sale’ set — along with whatever made this miscast actor accept such a thankless role.
Running an excessive two hours-40 minutes with one intermission, “The Queen of Versailles” is at the St. James Theatre (246 W. 44th Street) … at least until the guillotine drops.
Susan Granger is a product of Hollywood. Her natural father, S. Sylvan Simon, was a director and producer at M.G.M. and Columbia Pictures. Her adoptive father, Armand Deutsch, produced movies at M.G.M.
As a child, Susan appeared in movies with Abbott & Costello, Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Margaret O’Brien, and Lassie. She attended Mills College in California, studying journalism with Pierre Salinger, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism.