Don’t arrive at the St. James Theatre in time for the start of THE QUEEN OF VERSAILLES. You’ll enjoy the musical so much more if you get there 10 minutes late.
Truly, you’ll be better off if you miss the opening scene where songwriter Stephen Schwartz and librettist Lindsey Ferrentino bring you to the genuine Versailles in 1661 where Louis Quatorze is King. Did you know that he was a mere 23 at the time? No wonder his values were so superficial. The reason that he’s so profligate with money, as he says with a smirk of a smile, is “Because I can!”
Seconds later, the scrim rises on the “new” Versailles that Jackie and David Siegel are building near Orlando. Why? “Because I can,” each proclaims enthusiastically and unapologetically.
That’s no way to win over an audience; the implication is “I can – but you little people can’t.” Must they throw in our faces that they throw money around?
Even many who can afford premium seats wouldn’t have the wherewithal to build what the Siegels plan: the biggest house in America, one that will mirror the splendor of Versailles. In fact, plenty who want to see this Broadway musical will be forced to forego other necessities and pleasures just for a seat in the rear mezzanine.
Reports from last year’s Boston tryout and this year’s Broadway previews repeatedly complained that the musical doesn’t offer anyone to root for. That might not have been the case if the staff had instead shown us from the very start that Jackie came from a modest background in Binghamton, New York, a town where poverty is higher than the national average.
Jackie’s family bought lottery tickets in hopes that one would change their lives. After a TV announcer gave the numbers that didn’t do the trick, they watch “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.” Jackie was hardly the only American who wanted to trade places with the on-screen grandees. “Make the high life my life,” she sings in a fine Schwartz lyric.
Just when you’re inclined to write off Jackie as superficial, she reveals substance when she tells her parents that she wants to be wealthy enough to buy them a house. Here, and throughout the musical, Kristin Chenoweth admirably shows what the writers have ordered: Jackie is sincere.
She doesn’t step on anyone to get to the top; instead, she’ll climb to meet those who reside there. To accomplish that, she does what Val did in A CHORUS LINE to make herself more alluring to men.
It seems to work. Jackie marries and becomes pregnant. In a song that shows a tender side, she experiences the only true Love at First Sight that any of us can have: when we first lay eyes on our newborn child.
Jackie discovers that her husband “turned into someone else.” Here’s one instance out of dozens where Chenoweth and the creators display Jackie never succumbs to self-pity. She just goes out and gets two jobs and a studio apartment, where daughter Victoria’s crib sports a mattress but Jackie’s mere sleeping bag doesn’t.
And yet, Jackie won’t complain. If entering a Mrs. Florida Pageant can get her somewhere, count her in. There she delivers an inspirational message that the host assumes was her original thought. No – but Jackie doesn’t try to pass it off as hers; she immediately volunteers the name of the person who said it. Not only is she as honest as the day is long, but she’s also as honest as the day is long on the Sunday when we turn back the clocks an hour.
Jackie wins Mrs. Florida and something else: David Siegel. He also had a modest life until he met a man whose wealth came from selling apartment time shares. The mogul taught him everything he knew, fully expecting that David would join him. No: David was using him to learn all he could so that he could start his own business. Soon he eclipses his mentor and becomes The King of Time Shares.
Granted, David didn’t do anything illegal, but he wouldn’t be voted Mr. Nice Guy – not for that maneuver. But he is Mr. Very Nice Guy in his willingness to marry Jackie as well as raise Victoria; many men wouldn’t. As he blithely yet sincerely tells Jackie, “You’re a package deal.”
On their honeymoon in Paris, they tour Versailles. Jackie shows that she’s inherently just plain folk when she pulls out her camera and takes a picture of the tour guide. The creators were smart to make the idea of a Florida Versailles more David’s idea than hers: “Whatever you want, you can have.”
All these assets may be lost on theatergoers who turned against Jackie and David the moment they met them and heard them bragging. Did the collaborators and director Michael Arden feel that starting a show on the usual Rags-to-Riches trajectory was an overdone approach? That’s understandable. But the unfortunate start may have kept many from realizing that this Jackie – either one that the collaborators inherited from the 2012 documentary or the one they created themselves – is a fascinating character who has much more to her.
Like Scarlett O’Hara, the initially shallow Jackie turns out to have strength, indomitability, and resilience. After David goes broke, she impressively goes into a survival mode, ready to sell all that they own at fire-sale prices. David balks at parting with everything; Jackie, though, knows what must be done under dire circumstances, so she just plows ahead and surrenders prized possessions without shedding a tear. And as we all either know or have heard, it’s hard to be poor, but it’s much harder to be poor after you’ve been rich.
When a TV interviewer subtly mocks the Siegels’ sudden financial fall from grace, Jackie chooses not to be insulted. She takes the high road when others would go very low, either playing the victim or the denier.
Jackie’s father calls her “One the hardest workers I’ve ever known” in a scene where we have something else unexpected: her affable parents don’t criticize their daughter while also establishing that they don’t share her goals. (Solid pros Stephen DeRosa and Isabel Keating play those emotions with great sincerity.)
However, Schwartz and Ferrentino don’t sidestep Jackie’s flaws. We don’t feel good about her when she says she has six kids before correcting herself because she forgot that she actually has seven. That line will provide a sober irony in Act Two.
Victoria is the only one we meet. To be sure, hiring many children as well as a child wrangler to keep them in line would be prohibitive on an already expensive show. (Dane Laffrey sets? Christian Cowan’s costumes? Magnificent!) So, Victoria is all we get through most of her teenage years.
During that time, Jackie gives her a journal, saying that if the kid can’t vocalize her feelings, she might find the wherewithal to write them down. Just as we’re thinking how sensitive Jackie is, Victoria guesses that the suggestion came from TV.
Now here’s the thing: Jackie fully admits that it did. The average mother who was accused of getting an estimable idea from someone else would have lied and acted insulted.
Jackie, like so many parents, finds that she’s given birth to her eventual judge and jury. Victoria, perhaps to be contentious or because she believes it, says that she’d prefer a less grandiose residence. “In little houses you’re never alone … little homes have big hearts” she sings in some other fine Schwartz lyrics.
And when Victoria is cruel in criticizing her mother’s appearance, Jackie doesn’t bring out her heavy emotional artillery, any more than she does when a frustrated David shows displaced hostility and calls her “an old hag.” Chenoweth smartly has Jackie avoid escalating the situation but treats his remark as a type of temporary insanity in which the poverty is talking. Again: she’s admirable. That servants Ray and Sofia stay with her for the duration suggests that Jackie is good to her help as well.
After parenting all those kids, many an aunt would beg off from taking in a niece in need. But Jackie does with Jonquil, who’s soon singing “I Could Get Used to This.” That may seem to be a cliched song title, but its smart bookending later in the show redeems it.
Schwartz’s score attractively covers a good deal of musical ground: 17th century French baroque, a country two-step that sounds downright homey, and, in David’s song “Trust Me,” a melody that deserves to be a late addition to The Great American Songbook. For Victoria, there’s “Pretty Wins,” which admits that metaphorically, “pretty jumps the line” and how “men can be fat if their wallets are fatter.”
This is two-time Tony-winning director Michael Arden’s biggest assignment yet. He admirably keeps matters moving at a pace that never flags while getting gets fine performances from his cast. In addition to Chenoweth’s achievement, F. Murray Abraham solidly plays the good, bad and ugly David. As Victoria, Nina White gets more to do than she did in KIMBERLY AKIMBO and shows she’s capable of handling it. In her Broadway debut, Tatum Grace Hopkins as Jonquil has the goods to suggest this won’t be her only Main Stage assignment.
And let’s have a shout-out for Tony for Maureen Leshley, who’s Chenoweth’s dresser. She must get her star in and out of the most costumes of any leading lady since Mame came to the stage in 1966.
The important thing is that when Jackie says, “Family is family,” she means it. Eventually, that will lead to a tragedy, but again, Jackie will be strong in the face of adversity and learn from it, as we see near the show’s end.
Here’s where we get another interpretation of that famous expression “It doesn’t get any better than this.” Many say it when at a beach with a pina colada in one hand and watching a stunning sunset. But Jackie’s “It doesn’t get any better than this” means that you must face the fact that you’ve reached as high as you’re going to go. Life will never get better, no matter how much you expect it to, want it to, or try.
But again Jackie is brave: “If you can’t learn from your mistakes, don’t make them,” she says in yet another potent Schwartz lyric. The message of the show isn’t that “It’s lonely at the top” but that The American Dream can turn into a nightmare – but not necessarily one that will last forever. The American Dream can be a recurring one.
Sixty-one years ago at this same theater, HELLO, DOLLY! opened to unanimous approval from the critics and was off to a record-breaking run. Nevertheless, some months later, despite its smash-hit status, director-choreographer Gower Champion returned to it, believing he could still improve the show by replacing one dance number with another.
So, THE QUEEN OF VERSAILLES creators, it’s not too late to make a much easier change that may well change the fortunes of your musical: drop that opening number.
