Review Roundup: TAMMY FAYE Opens On Broadway

The story of famed evangelist Tammy Faye Bakker comes to life in a new Broadway musical starring Katie Brayben, Christian Borle, and Michael Cerveris! The show opens tonight and the critics stopped by the newly renovated Palace Theatre to hear the gospel of Tammy! Read the reviews as they roll in!

The story of a traveling preacher’s wife who beamed into homes with a message of hope… and stole the country’s heart. It’s the 1970s. As satellites broadcast brand-new cable programming into American homes, millions fall in love with Tammy Faye Bakker – the charismatic wife of pastor Jim Bakker. Together, they build a nationwide congregation that puts the fun back into faith. But, even as Tammy dazzles on screen, jealous rivals plot behind the scenes, threatened by her determination to lead with love.

Featuring a score by Elton John, with lyrics by Scissor Sisters’ Jake Shears, a book by Olivier Award-winning playwright James Graham, and directed by Olivier Award winner Rupert Goold.

Elisabeth Vincentelli, The New York Times: But after that teasing introduction, Tammy Faye’s signature Kabuki facade barely figures in the disjointed, strangely bland musical that opened on Thursday at the newly renovated Palace Theater. It is laudable that the show’s composer, Elton John; lyricist, Jake Shears (of Scissor Sisters); book writer, James Graham; and director, Rupert Goold, tried to go behind the mask of this complicated, outsize woman, whose public persona was shaped by and for television. The problem is that they ended up making her smaller than life.

Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune: That part of the show, thanks to the honesty and richness of Brayben’s lead performance, is the more interesting one. The more general satirical wash, and it is a tonally constant covering, grows tiresome as the show progresses. “Tammy Faye” feels like it comes from abroad, as indeed it does, because you never believe that any of the creators have any real skin in the game.

Emlyn Travis, Entertainment Weekly: While Tammy Faye may try to wrap up its lead's life into a pretty bow by preaching about the importance of loving yourself and forgiveness, its end result, sadly, is a complicated portrait of an equally complicated woman. Grade: C

Sara Holdren, Vulture: The blithe big-tent-ism (which also seems to be Elton’s go-to interview stance) feels pat. Clearly the production’s not all that interested in people with serious Christian-conservative leanings, unless they have a whole lot of patience for endless puns about Jesus being “inside her/him/me/you” and “the sound of the Lord, coming right in your ear.” And if you are, to quote Tammy Faye’s version of Jimmy Swaggart, a “liberal-loving Marxist,” you’re probably too heartsick to find all this much fun.

Frank Rizzo, Variety: It takes more than a holy spirit and revivalist verve to make “Tammy Faye” divinely suited for musical theater. It would take a creative team knowing what their show wants to be: a campy hoot, a stinging indictment, an anguished melodrama, a witty satire, a revealing biography? The new Broadway musical “Tammy Faye” touches on all of these points of view but lands on none with any sense of confidence, consistency or purpose. It’s as messy as Tammy’s mascara.

Adam Feldman, Time Out New York: The trouble with this conception is that Tammy Faye herself is almost the least garish thing about it. Brayben won an Olivier Award for this role, but there’s a fundamental Englishness about her that she can’t quite shake; she’s solid and sympathetic, and sings extremely well, but she doesn’t access Tammy’s rawness and almost childlike ebullience—the personal charisma at the center of her brand of Charismatic Christianity. And the musical doesn’t help her get there. The qualities that made Tammy Faye a gay icon—the cosmetics, the pills, the excess, the tears—are addressed only glancingly; we don’t get inside her head about them. Instead, Tammy Faye serves us a likable, sincere gal doing the best she can in a world whose machinations she doesn’t understand. But does Tammy Faye understand them any better? Its point of view is hard to discern. The eyes may be a window to the soul, as Tammy was wont to say, but it’s hard to see the soul through eyes that can’t decide if they’re glaring, winking or crying.

Tim Teeman, The Daily Beast: The structure and messaging of the musical is a puzzle. At moments, it wants to be as gleefully salacious and irreverent as The Book of Mormon with songs like “He’s Inside Me” featuring Brayben and Christian Borle (Jim; both excellent of voice) imagining God physically inside them. “God’s House/Heritage USA” also revels in the technicolor, surreal lunacy of the Bakkers constructing a Christianity-centered theme park. Here, the musical briefly, and successfully, revels in how excessive their subject matter is. The rest of the songs—shockingly, given the musical bona fides of their creators—are earnest, forgettable duds, with a story surrounding the Bakkers that becomes more and more ill-fitting as the performance progresses.

Michael Musto, The Village Voice: Directed by Rupert Goold (Ink, Patriots), this show is a guilty pleasure awash in a colorful struggle between good and evil. As fun as it is, the musical might seem quaint to anyone who’s come of age in an era where Donald Trump is the hero of the Evangelists, despite being an adjudicated rapist, adulterer, and fraudster. Tammy Faye is a healthy reminder that back in the good old days, scandals could actually harm you.

Robert Hofler, The Wrap: That ghastly waking nightmare will give you some idea of what it’s like to sit through the new musical “Tammy Faye,” which opened Thursday at the Palace Theatre after its world premiere last year in London. Just as TV Evangelists suck up to their right-wing audience, the makers of “Tammy Faye” pander to feminists and “the gays.” Jake Shears’ puerile lyrics to Elton John’s weak country-Western tunes encourage women to take control of their life by using those “credit cards.” Much worse and more pervasive are the many ways James Graham’s book turns the title character into a gay icon somewhere to the left of Lady Gaga. We’re expected to find Tammy Faye sympathetic, even though she begs for money from poor people so she can look like a hideously dressed drag queen. Costumes are by Katrina Lindsay; Luc Verschueren designed the hair, wigs and make-up.

Greg Evans, Deadline: Opening tonight at Broadway‘s Palace Theater, with a book by James Graham, lyrics by Jake Shears and music by Elton John, Tammy Faye is only slightly more fun than church on a hot July day. All concerned seem absolutely determined to transform the town madcap into a respectable, saintly and rather dull church-lady-next-door.

Steven Suskin, New York Stage Review: There is something to be said, musical comedy-wise, in leaving the answer ambiguous so that viewers can puzzle it out for themselves. The overriding flaw in Tammy Faye is that the creators seem content to jump from satire to morality tale, from Tammy-the-charlatan with her friendly proctologist to Tammy the AIDS crusader, with no clear aim other than to maximize audience response moment by moment.

Michael Sommers, New York Stage Review: Let’s be relatively brief because it’s mean to keep beating a dead duck like Tammy Faye, poor thing. A surprisingly flat-liner musical involving tunes from Elton John scarcely composing in top form and a sorrowful cartoony story about American TV evangelist Tammy Faye Bakker, the production that opened Thursday at the Palace Theatre does not promise to become a longtime Broadway attraction.

Johnny Oleksinski, New York Post: Much of “Tammy Faye” is uncomfortable. Lynne Page’s ‘80s grab-bag choreography is me at a wedding. Staging aside, narratively the whole point of the Bakkers is largely missed. Go in cold, and you’ll leave with no idea about how famous Jim and Tammy were or why you’ve just sat through a musical about them.Where Graham and Shears try to force in some 2024 depth is an overwrought thesis on how television evangelicals impacted American politics and forged the path of the modern-day Republican Party.

Average Rating: 30.8%