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azuresquirrel · 6 years

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SO. MOULIN ROUGE BOSTON PRE-BROADWAY RUN PREMIERE. This is going to be massively unorganized, as I simply try to remember as much as I can from the show. And folks, this is a lot of show. This post is MASSIVE and needless to say I’ll be spoiling A LOT about this world premiere pre-Broadway run that may or may not have changes made to it.

(before I speak of the show itself, let me say that is was FUCKING CHAOTIC in the Colonial. Literally all seats but TWO were filled in the balcony, and probably the whole theatre, and they did not have enough people working there for this crowd. I didn’t even get a program because they didn’t have enough ushers)

So like the overall take of this is that it is EXCESSIVE and OVERWHELMING. I mean that as a good thing. I of course have a bunch of nitpicks, and they could very well change things for Broadway, but this was essentially a Broadway-ready show that is set to be a crowdpleaser. Somehow they managed to capture the feeling of the movie itself on the stage with the direction and choreography, even with the numerous changes both necessary in terms of restructuring the story for a musical format, and just stuff used to differentiate the stage show. While a few things added I guess were something of an attempt to ‘deepen’ the story, largely they understand what this is – a big old sparking cupcake of musical and theatrical excess and it is goddamn enjoyable for it. It hooked me, it sure hooked the rest of the audience that hooted and hollered and clapped (I have bruises on my hands now).

DESIGNS ARE IMPECCABLE. The sets are ASTOUNDING (I gasped at a scene transition at one point). The scenery is extended outside of the proscenium with the windmill flanking one side and the elephant flanking another. The apron of the stage extended out and surrounded the front audience seats, who were seated at club tables a’la Cabaret or a much smaller scale Great Comet. The costumes are EXCESSIVE and impressive even if they don’t fully match a few of the film’s iconic looks. The lighting design – my god, was the lighting designer on speed?? Or something?? Honestly don’t see this show if you are prone to seizures it is THAT MUCH. Choreography is on goddamn point.

The cast is pretty much Broadway-ready and I hope they don’t replace a single one of them. Aaron Tveit and Karen Olivo are the perfect Broadway-versions of the Ewan McGregor-Nicole Kidman star power of the movie. I don’t know how the fuck Karen does it but she was at a TEN the entire fucking time, just belting every number like her life depended on it, and she really brought a lot of shading to Satine as a woman who has hardened herself to survive (one thing somewhat different from the movie, I guess with Karen not exactly being a youthful ingénue anymore was this idea of this being Satine’s ‘last chance’ but it melded into her arc pretty seamlessly). Aaron by contrast seemed to be holding back a bit/conserving his energy, especially in act one, but he fucking brings it when he needs to and his vocal command of that shitload of music is impressive, not a hint of strain. Christian is somewhat different from the movie version – he’s not British anymore he’s American (from goddamn LIMA, OHIO. GLEE.), and with act two being played for the tragedy he goes rather darker than movie Christian. Instead of a generic writer he is specifically a composer and the writer of love songs, and he’s somewhat less of the pure naïve innocent of McGregor’s Christian, but I thought it worked.

Danny Burstein absolutely nails it as Zidler, perfectly introducing the audience to the show and the tone. ZIdler is explicitly gay now in the stage show and largely it just fits the character that’s already there rather than making him ‘stereotypical’ (or rather not anymoreso than he already is). Honestly this is mostly a great change (I have a slight criticism for a plot point in act two), and it really helps his relationship with Satine and him becoming something less of a controlling sleazeball. This is especially needed because stage Satine’s goal is less to “fly away” and become a real actress, but rather to save the people of the Moulin Rouge, who she regards as a family. Thus Zidler is far less controlling over her, rather they feel much more like peers. Notably (AND A GOOD CHANGE) Zidler does not find out Satine is sick when she’s unconscious and withholds it from her, Zidler finds out she’s sick in act two and immediately tells her it’s consumption (which killed his first love, ANATOLE). Also he does not order her to break Christian’s heart to save him from the Duke’s wrath, that’s a decision Satine makes entirely on her own, so the plot changes to Zidler also strengthens Satine’s character and gives her a lot more agency.

By far the biggest change from the movie is everything about how they play the Duke. The Duke is not a foppish pathetic nebbish of a man who’s clearly no competition for Christian. Played by Tam Mutu, this Duke is sexy, threatening, controlling, and dominating (emphasis intended). Heck we’re introduced to him BEFORE CHRISTIAN (kinda nuts???). The love triangle is very much that, with the Duke being a very real villain who offers Satine everything she wants in terms of money but is also a controlling asshole (and extends that to the Moulin Rouge and the show within a show as well). He is not clueless and bumbling, Satine IS sleeping with him the whole time, and there’s no giant manservant, he makes his violent threats directly and you believe it (however they, WISELY I feel, cut the attempted rape during El Tango Roxanne, which is in the show but VERY recontextualized, even with act two being played more for tragedy it was wise to not go THAT dark with it). It will then not surprise you that one of the big movie numbers that’s cut is “Like a Virgin” as this would not fit this decidedly non-comic version of the Duke.

Sahr Ngaujah plays Lautrec, and he is a REVELATION as I was unfamiliar with him before. He is a FORCE OF NATURE. He is not a little person, nor is that played in this Lautrec (aside from like two lines of the Duke calling him “little man” which honestly read awkwardly). Rather he has a cane and a limp, and there’s now a really strong racial undercurrent to his devotion to Bohemian ideals as he is a Black man. He is charismatic and has a great voice. Since the bohemians in the stage version are really pared down (wisely, conservation of character) to just Lautrec and the Argentinian, Lautrec’s role is beefed up a lot, although it doesn’t always make entire sense. Lautrec is now the director and the book writer for the show-within-a-show, and his bohemian ideals are MUCH stronger as the show-within-a-show is dramatically changed. While there are jokes in act one about him going on about putting ‘proletariat’ ideals in his work, in act two he very explicitly stands against the Duke trying to change the show, so “freedom, beauty, truth and love” feels like it really means something to him rather than in the movie where they just seems a bunch of horny artists. On the stage, Lautrec is an old friend of Satine’s having met her when she was thirteen and dumps a lot of backstory onto Christian for us. He also says he was in love with Satine but never told her. This honestly leads to some character inconsistency – in one scene he’s telling Christian to “not make his mistake” and go for love, and in another he’s telling Christian to “forget about her, she’s made her choice”???? Also did we really need another dude in love with Satine with the central love triangle?

Let’s talk music – a lot of the music from the movie is still in there, though a few notable numbers have been cut, like the aforementioned “Like a Virgin.” They also added A LOT MORE MUSIC, including into mashups with other existing songs. MOST of these slot in amazingly into great numbers. In my mind there are two new numbers that really don’t live up to what they are replacing, but generally the new music sounds GREAT. Orchestrations and ensemble vocal arrangements are STUNNING on a few numbers, particularly the act two opener. There is, however, a SLIGHT tonal problem with some of the new music and the audience. A lot of new songs provoked laughter from the audience as they recognized them. For most songs this was not a problem, especially in the frothy frivolity of act one, but for the more dramatic numbers is kind of was (especially, again, in tragic act two). Please know that I will SO be getting the inevitable cast recording because everyone’s voices on these numbers are amazing.

NOW FOR THE NITTY-GRITTY. So there was ZERO pre-show announcement because THE SHOW TRANSITIONED INTO STARTING NEAR-SEEMLESSLY. About ten minutes before “start” actors slowly came onto stage, dancing, cavorting, entertaining the audience. Two of the very attractive women did a SWORD-SWALLOWING ACT right in front of the big Moulin Rouge sign. Then Christian comes onstage, observing off to the side, then hits the lights (there was a massive prop switch on one side of the stage that was used throughout the show for ‘the lights’), so the show can “start.” It begins right at the Moulin Rouge with “Lady Marmalade,” then Zidler’s entrance truly playing the crowd, including setting off THE CONFETTI CANON THAT IS CONCEALED IN HIS CANE, then into the Can-Can. Then the Duke enters with some contemporary song that honestly I SHOULD know but do not, and he sits in the booth on stage right. Then Christian enters with Lautrec and the Argentinian and they seat on stage left (the three of them also harmonize A BUNCH throughout the show and it sounds great).

It is only when Zidler begins to introduce Satine that the spotlight hits Christian and he begins “narrating” the story about the woman he loved. Christian has no typewriter like in the movie. Essentially what I got from the finale is that the show itself is him telling the story? He is a songwriter now after all? Anyway, at that point it transitions back in time to earlier that day when he arrives in Paris. This was the set change that floored me, immediately the stage transforms from the opulent Moulin Rouge to the streets on Montmarte in PERFECT GREYSCALE (one of the smaller but stunning pieces of stagecraft in the show is when Christian sings “the hills are alive with the sound of music” – when the spotlight hits him the backdrop goes from greyscale to full color in the light, then back again). So he meets up with Lautrec and the Argentinian, and they hit it off together to “Royals” (THIS ACTUALLY WORKS ASTOUNDINGLY WELL). They quickly hatch the scheme to pitch the show (which Lautrec wants to name “Bohemian Rhapsody”) to Satine, and we return back to the scene we left in the Moulin Rouge for Satine’s entrance.

SHE ENTERS DOWN FROM THE SWING. In a red feathered dress that later does an amazing quick change/reveal to a black diamond-studded lingerie number (Karen Olivo spends A LOT of this musical in fancy lingerie). On the swing she sings bits of “Diamonds are Forever” and then it goes into “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend.” For the “Material Girl” bit the female ensemble comes out in matching top hats that they all take off to reveal Madonna wigs. Then we have “Single Ladies” mashed up into it. Satine does not get back onto the swing to fall off dramatically, she simply has a moment in the song where she nearly faints, but she recovers to dance on top of a giant diamond platform.

Then her and Zidler have the mix-up of who is the Duke while the dancers dance to “Rhythm of the Night”, and then when Satine and Christian meet and dance it is set to a mashup of “Shut Up and Dance With Me” and “Raise Your Glass” (MUCH LIKE ROYALS, THIS SHOULDN’T WORK, AND YET IT ABSOLUTELY DOES???). Lautrec and the Argentinian also distract Zidler with some song and I think “We Are Young” is somewhere in all of this as well (HONESTLY I DO NOT REMEMBER EVERY SINGLE NEW SONG BECAUSE THERE WAS *A LOT* OF MUSIC IN THIS SHOW, “WE ARE YOUNG” WAS IN THERE AT SOME POINT).

Afterwards we get a backstage scene of Satine talking with Zidler and the main “Lady Marmalade” girls talking about needing the Duke’s money in order for the Moulin Rouge to survive and keep everyone off the streets. So here Satine’s motivation is much less “become a real actress and escape the Moulin Rouge” but instead “the people of Moulin Rouge are my family and I need to singlehandedly keep this place going.” Satine KNOWS she’s sick and is keeping it from everyone/doesn’t think it’s that big a deal.

-Now I should mention here as a slight tangent that one of the Lady Marmalade girls is um, well, she’s played as a transwoman. Mmm. I have. Thoughts. On this. For one thing, I can’t tell you the gender identity of the performer as I did not get a playbill. For another thing, while yes most of the characters are sex workers, and yes I appreciate putting a wider display of gender and sexuality onstage (which only fits the world of early-20th-century artist-bohemian Paris), do we really need more of the hoary old trope of the sexworker transwoman? It’s a small part of the show but still. CONCERN over that choice.

So obviously we don’t have “One Day I’ll Fly Away.” Instead we have . . . “Firework.” Number I don’t feel entirely works number 1. Now Karen SELLS THE GODDAMN SHIT out of it, but like. “Firework.” Not as a good of a number as “One Day I’ll Fly Away.” Also even though they obviously avoid the line about feeling “like a plastic bag” they do keep the line about FOURTH OF JULY in Paris, France. Even with Moulin Rouge being as over-the-top and fantastical as it is, boy does that stick out as WEIRD.

Then we go into the elephant set (it’s a garish room surrounded by an elephant proscenium, there are so many layers to this set), and “Your Song” remains in its glory, although we do not do the ‘dancing in the stars’ bit (NOT YET).

Now “Spectacular, Spectacular” is dramatically rewritten to reflect the show-within-a-show being VERY different as it is no longer set in India. Instead, Lautrec is playing into the actual revolutionary theatre style of the early 20th century of extreme realism (HONESTLY I FEEL LIKE I APPRECIATE THIS MUCH MORE THAN MOST AS A FORMER THEATRE SCHOLAR). Thus the play more resembles the actual La Boheme, or the “social dramas” of the time which is WHAT PARISIAN BOHEMIANS WOULD BE WRITING AND PERFORMING – Lautrec says plainly in act two that he wants to ‘hold up a mirror to Paris.’ So the show-within-a-show is set in Paris and is about the love triangle between a prostitute, a romantic sailor, and a rich gangster. Largely I think it’s a good thing to steer the hell away from the massive cultural appropriation of the movie’s Indian version, although this dramatically changes the climax of the show, as it now becomes a more intimate scene between Christian and Satine than the triumphant LOVE ABOVE ALL ELSE in the movie (more on that later). And my one BIG costume regret is that Satine is then in a dingy black dress for the climax (which is actually a plot point in act two with the Duke arguing against this), rather than the beautiful iconic white gown from the movie. Ah well.

So after Satine gets everyone out of the room but the Duke, they actually DO THE DO, after the Duke sings a mashup of “Sympathy for the Devil” and “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”

After this we get a scene between Lautrec and Christian on the street writing the show, where Lautrec gives his and Satine’s backstory to Christian and sings “Nature Boy” gorgeously, eventually convincing Christian to go after her. The next scene is the Duke “negotiating” with Zidler, with Zidler’s male lover in there at the start (put a pin in that, we’re coming back to that in act two). By that I mean the Duke taking ownership of literally everything and agreeing to produce Lautrec’s show simply as “an amusement.”

We then go back to the elephant, and Christian is persuading Satine to have an affair with him behind the Duke’s back, and we have a revamped “Elephant Love Medley” with WAY MORE SONGS IN IT including “Take on Me”, “What’s Love Got to Do With It”, “Don’t Speak” and like LOTS MORE I AM PROBABLY FORGETTING. This morphs into the giant act one ender as HERE, once we hit “heroes” the stage transforms into the Paris skyline with all the stars out and the dancers wheel on the Eiffel Tower for Christian and Satine to dance on and EVERY SINGLE LIGHT IN THE THEATRE IS PROJECTING STARS and they quick-change into their starry blue costumes IT WAS ALL VERY OPULENT AND ROMANTIC.

So act one is very much a frothy delight of THEATRE!!!! MUSIC!!! LOVE!!!! BIG OLD PRODUCTION NUMBERS!!! And not to say that act two lacks those things but there is a NOTABLE tonal shift in act two to THE TRAGEDY of it all.

So act two opens with Christian narrating for the audience to think back to their first love affair, so that they can understand how he is driven to madness. He also introduces the “other” backstage love affair with the Argentinian and Nini, who are dancing erotically on the stage before rehearsal for the show starts. We begin the NUTSO act two opening number, starting as a duet of the two of them on motherfucking “Bad Romance.” It is AMAZING, particularly in the Argentinian’s growl. Then the other dancers enter, it becomes a group number which is then mashed up into “TOXIC” and “SWEET DREAMS ARE MADE OF THIS” and eventually Christian and Satine join in with the whole group. The choreography for this whole number is NUTS the vocal arrangement OFF THE HOOK and it absolutely stopped the show.

So then we have rehearsals, including some prop comedy with Zidler that absolutely killed, and in a welcome change, instead of Nini divulging the affair to the Duke like in the movie (where it seemingly came out of nowhere), she instead WARNS Satine that the Duke is a dangerous man to mess with, telling about how another woman who cheated him ended up with her lover murdered in the river and the woman disfigured (this adds the legitimate threat to Christian and motivates Satine on her own). And the Duke gets the picture pretty clearly when Christian pulls the whole “SHE DOESN’T LOVE YOU” line in the rehearsal.

So after rehearsal goes shitty and Satine is conflicted about what to do with these two men, we get a scene of Zidler and the Lady Marmalade girls talking about how things are looking dire for the theatre. So essentially replacing “The Show Must Go On” from the movie we instead have Florence + the Machine’s “Shake It Off.” Number I have a problem with number two. Now this is a song that on its own I LOVE. But it honestly feels . . . out of place and unneeded. Again, the cast gives it their all but like . . . it just doesn’t fit in the way that “The Show Must Go On” did. I mean, I would see this as the number most likely to be cut or changed for Broadway, but honestly who the fuck knows.

The next scene is Satine going to Christian’s apartment. Here we have a full duet of “Come What May” (which is not a song in the show-within-a-show but just then straight-up singing about their love for each other).

Then the next scene is waaaaaay new as we have Satine with the Duke on a rich-ass boulevard with everyone in these extravagant rich-ass costumes that looks like Sunday in the Park with George was vomited on by Revolutionary Girl Utena and pastels (I’ll be real, the Duke is in the lavender suit with giant coat and tophat and I fucking wanted to wear the entire thing). The Duke shows Satine a house that he has bought for her and tells her all of the things he will provide for her – if she gives him “everything” including her heart, and she stops performing shortly after the show opens, as having his mistress parade herself onstage would be unbecoming to a man of his status. Satine, in her Sunday best but clearly on as “in fashion” as everyone else onstage, points out she doesn’t really fit his status. She then gets this . . . oddly sadomasochistic (?) makeover with the Duke singing a BIZARRE version of Rihanna’s “Only Girl in the World” (it does work, but I think it is purposefully bizarre in the scene) and Satine sings a dark reprise of “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” while she is put into this Eliza Dolittle monstrosity.

With another rehearsal scene and Lautrec talking back to the Duke and Christian ready to lose his shit over the Duke treating Satine, and everyone else, as his possession, we then transition to Christian’s apartment the night before the show. He’s going mad with jealousy, threatening to kill himself, and the Argentinian and Lautrec are trying to talk him down. Eventually they tell him he needs to purge himself of Satine with absinthe. They take absinthe while singing Sia’s “Chandeleer” (their three-part harmony on this is STUNNING) and as Christian goes into a haze he hallucinates first Satine as the green fairy (COMING DOWN ON THE SWING AGAIN) and then eventually a whole sequence of different green fairies, dancing with men. Still enraged and jealous, Christian takes to the streets.

EL TANGO ROXANNE. It is still here but it is MASSIVELY recontextualized. It’s a much less literal number now, no longer set in the Moulin Rouge, almost more of a dream ballet (??) as Christian wanders the streets. We being with ZIDLER being the one giving the opening speech explaining the dance while the Argentinian and Nini do the dance to the side. Then the lights go out and come back on with the spotlight on Christian center stage and with tango couples around him. It begins with him singing the “his eyes upon your hand” bridge, and then the actual Roxanne part is sung BY CHRISTIAN. I was massively thrown off by this at first, I was looking forward to hearing this Argentinian sing this version, but it fits more with Christian here as motivating his actions rather than as the beset-upon innocent, and Tveit fucking GIVE S IT HIS ALL. We also have Christian seeing a vision of Satine and you know the red dress she’s wearing in all the promo pics? She’s wearing it here.

So then the scene in the Duke’s tower is hugely different from the movie. At the start Satine enters the room and the Duke is talking with the man who we saw before as Zidler’s lover. Apparently the Duke has been paying him to be “his eyes” at the Moulin Rouge (so my pin – the evil gay? C’mon guys. At least Zidler’s sexuality largely isn’t demonized but like c’mon), so he is VERY aware of Satine and Christian’s extracurricular activities. He then gives Satine the ultimatum – be mine or Christian will end up a corpse with his throat slit ear to ear. Christian, drunk and high, enters and sadly attempts to fight the Duke and professes his love for Satine. Satine coldly turns him down to save his life and breaks down crying when the men leave.

We now have Christian broken and alone on the street and he begins singing “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkely, which then transitions into “Rolling in the Deep” (this was probably the most awkward part of the show where the audience laughed at recognizing a song). “Rolling” continues on to everyone getting ready for the show at the Moulin Rouge, to Satine singing as well, then we see Christian off to the side LOADING A GUN, and the number climaxes with Christian and Satine singing on either side with the dancers in the middle performing the start of the show within a show.

Then we have the BIG CLIMAX of the show with the show-within-a-show, which is now a much darker affair since it is not a glorious wedding in ~exotic India~. Christian crashes the scene, coming up from the actual theatre’s aisles as we are now fully the audience of the Moulin Rouge. Here Christian doesn’t slutshame Satine and claim to “pay his whore” instead he pulls out the loaded gun (as a part of the written scene) but then turns into to his own chest.

To bring him back with the confession of true love, Satine sings “Your Song.” Then after their big kiss Satine VERY QUICKLY falls into his arms and starts dying (hence how it’s less of a triumph into eventually tragedy, but rather a personal scene with Christian and Satine that takes a VERY QUICK TURN). And after asking Christian to “tell her story” Satine of course dies in his arms.

After this, Christian gives a very brief epilogue explaining how he started writing again, and now he starts to sing “Come What May”, eventually joined by everyone else in the Moulin Rouge, sans the dead Satine. They keep these poses after blackout for the first round of applause.

THEN the curtain call asks you to forget about all that tragedy and SING AND CLAP A FUCKLOAD with a giant dance number/singalong of Lady Marmalade, the Can Can, and EVEN “HEY YA.” I should note that during this part the male ensemble comes out in the iconic movie look of the tuxedo on top and tutu and tights on the bottom. At one point the choreo has the female ensemble riding these men, and rest assured I yelled “IT’S EQUALITY.” THEN after that was the full cast bows, with Karen and Aaron last and together and then the men pull out cane which are ALL confetti canons that shoot out confetti and streamers so high it almost reached the balcony.

SO THERE IS THE EXPERIENCE OF SEEING “MOULIN ROUGE” ONSTAGE. It is indeed a RAVISHMENT OF THE SENSES and honestly there were probably a lot of bits of new music in there that I forgot, but folks, it looks great, it sounds great, the cast is phenominal, IT IS INDEED, EVERYTHING.

#Moulin Rouge #Moulin Rouge musical #musicals #theatre

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