The Queen of Versailles

Emerson Colonial Theatre, Boston, MA, August 14, 2017

Reviewed by John Amodeo

Not since the Broadway musical Wicked has Kristin Chenoweth had such a plum star vehicle to showcase her considerable talent as she has done in the new musical The Queen of Versailles. It has been having its pre-Broadway premier at Boston’s Emerson Colonial Theatre and runs through August 25. Chenoweth managed to fill the Colonial Theatre’s vast stage with an outsized bubbly effervescence for the entire 2:40 running time that belied her petite 4’ 11” frame.

Every moment Chenoweth was on stage, which was about 80% of the time, was pure joy. The night that I saw it, the audience sat gleefully enraptured during her scenes, following her every word. Conversely, when Chenoweth was not on stage, the show, despite an excellent cast and impressive production values, seemed to sag, just a bit. Blissfully, those moments were few and far between. That gave the audience what they came for: an evening packed with an abundance of Kristin Chenoweth.

Chenoweth plays socialite Jackie Siegel whose mercurial rags-to-riches story was dramatized in a 2012 documentary with the same name by filmmaker Lauren Greenfield. This true story traces the socially ambitious Jackie Mallery’s rise from her humble lower-middle-class beginnings to the top one percent when she marries husband number three, billionaire David Siegel (a winning F. Murray Abraham), who made his fortune selling time shares in Florida. Feeling cramped in their 26,000 square foot home, as one might, Jackie convinced David to embark on building for them the largest private residence in the United State: a 90,000 square foot mansion inspired by Versailles—or at least a nouveau-riche take of Versailles. Midway through the construction, the 2008 recession swept away the Siegel’s fortune, and construction on the mansion halted, leaving the family having to sell assets to survive, including Versailles.

Greenfield’s documentary shined a garish light on this self-absorbed, out-of-touch couple. Surely, a musical based on this bristly couple would test an audience’s ability to identify with or sympathize with their plight. Thanks to Stephen Schwartz’s tuneful score, Lindsey Ferrentino’s insightful book, and Michael Arden’s deft direction, we moved past our natural gravitation toward schadenfreude and instead watched hoping that this couple would survive.

Credit for that goes to Chenoweth, who performed similar alchemy when she played another self-absorbed character, Glinda in Wicked, whose opening line was “It’s good to see me, isn’t it?” Chenoweth’s pluck and sunny sweetness won our hearts then. The same was true in The Queen of Versailles, where, as Jackie, Chenoweth had a similar moment early in the show. Interviewed while sitting in a gilded Louis XIV high-backed chair, clothed in a pink cotton candy-dress with platinum blonde hair extensions cascading down to her newly purchased ample bosom and with a fluffy white Pomeranian on her lap, she quipped to a camera filming the building of the house, “It may surprise you, but we are not old money.” Her sheer likability had us laugh with her instead of at her. The line had added impact in Boston, a city of old money, where ostentatious displays of wealth are typically frowned on.

Other characters helped to flesh out this story. The Siegels raised eight children together, six were born to them, plus Jonquil, an orphaned niece was adopted into the family, and finally, Victoria was born to Jackie during a previous marriage. We met only the two oldest, Victoria and Jonquil, but the Siegel’s affable but put-upon nanny Sofia (a stalwart Melody Butiu) referred often enough to the other children that we felt their presence. Sofia’s character was ideal for a song about leaving her own family behind in the Philippines to care for someone else’s family. Unfortunately, her song has likely landed on the cutting room floor.

The Siegels also have a large, eccentric menagerie of pets, and as with the children, we met only two: the Pomeranian and a lizard whose sad fate was lamented in an amusing elegy duet between Victoria (the exceptionally talented Nina White), and Jonquil (a precocious 19-year-old Tatum Grace Hopkins in her professional theatrical debut). This number formed a lovely bonding moment between the pair that had up until then been bitter rivals for Jackie’s attention.

This musical marked the first reunion between Schwartz and Chenoweth in 21 years, and oh, what a reunion it was. Schwartz has written a highly melodic score, filled with wonderful plot-advancing songs that include several power ballads written specifically for Chenoweth. The first, which became a recurring motif throughout the show, was “Champagne Wishes, Caviar Dreams,” a classic “I want” song. Here, a teenage Jackie alone in her bedroom yearned for the life of the rich and famous and told us exactly how she planned to get there. Flashing her 1,000-watt smile with fierce conviction and her irresistible trademark nasal belt, Chenoweth brought down the house. Like “Defying Gravity”, this is a Stephen Schwartz anthem that has legs outside of the show and will soon become every alto ingenue’s audition song.

While most of this show belongs to Chenoweth, Schwartz has devoted apt attention to other characters. F. Murray Abraham was surprisingly good in his big number, “Timeshare King,” in which he regaled us with his rise to financial success. Victoria, an earthy 16-year-old who has never been comfortable with her lavish upbringing, was given a moment of searing social commentary in the powerful “Book of Random,” in which she recounted entries in her diary that disparaged an unwanted life of luxury and the toll it had taken on her. White’s commanding delivery of this in her resonant alto voice left an indelible mark on the show.

Here is where Ferrentino’s book and Arden’s direction needs some work. Act One, which focused on the story told in Greenfield’s documentary, needed to better develop the mother-daughter relationship between Jackie and Victoria for Victoria’s tragic fate in Act Two to have its intended emotional impact. Instead, we were unmoved. Victoria, who had been written as the audience surrogate, the story’s social conscience, deserved better. With the production heading for a 2025 or 2026 Broadway launch, the creative team has time to work on that. Some apt attention was given to Jonquil, a bit of a goth rebel who initially was swept up into the glamour of the high life but who finally saw through its paper-thin veneer and found nothing beneath it and nothing to stay for. Hopkins captured the moment.

Chenoweth’s star power, the strong cast, and the well-crafted score and book were beautifully ensconced within a magnificent set designed by Dane Laffrey that created three levels of the mansion’s interior under construction. Wheeled industrial steel staircases shifted back and forth connected to various platforms where the action took place and created a captivating dynamic. Smaller set pieces were given a flat screen backdrop with projections by Laffrey that created different settings within the larger set. It was a lavish feast for the eyes that complemented Christian Cowan’s colorful costumes. All of these were enhanced by Natasha Katz’s nuanced lighting.

Laffrey cleverly juxtaposed the Kardashian-like kitsch of the Siegels’ new emerging Versailles with more tasteful opulence by opening the show in the plush halls of the original Versailles, where equally socially oblivious Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette were posing for their portraits. Another clever move was premiering this production at the Emerson Colonial Theatre, whose stunning lobby was inspired by the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, which set the show’s tone for the audience the minute they entered the theater. We later saw Jackie and David as they entered the real Versailles’ Hall of Mirrors to draw inspiration for their mansion. This resonated more deeply with the audience members who had just passed through the theater’s nearly identical lobby. Few Broadway houses can match the Emerson Colonial’s French Empire grandeur, so that experience may remain unique to Boston audiences.

Arden, a Tony Award-winning director for the revival of Parade and Tony-nominated director of the revivals of Once on This Island and Spring Awakening, knows where more Act One character development is needed, and where to tighten Act Two. With Schwartz’s instantly likable score and Chenoweth’s outsized talent, The Queen of Versailles was a feast for the eyes and ears that humanized a story about people we might not otherwise have cared for.