Xanadu: The Gods Must Be Crazy

There are some Broadway musicals they say are for people who hate Broadway musicals.  Others they say are for people who love Broadway musicals.  I'd say Xanadu, the flat out hilarious new kid in town, is for people who love Broadway musicals but who hate Broadway musicals that are based on movies, have jukebox scores, sell on-stage seating, make the actors wear those mouthpiece microphones, wink at the audience with smarmy self-reference, are cheaply produced, are packed with jokes only gay men understand, really belong Off-Broadway and put the actors on roller skates.  (Did I leave anything out?)

In a sense, bookwriter Douglas Carter Beane, the first person I'd text message if asked to assemble a 21^st Century Algonquin Round Table, hasn't really written a stage adaptation of the 1980 Olivia Newton-John fiasco about a mythological ancient Greek muse with an Australian accent sent to Southern California to inspire a struggling young artist through the power of roller disco.  No, what giddily glides about the stage of the Helen Hayes Theatre serves as a warning to playgoers of what to expect if they keep lowering their standards.  By the end of the smart and shameless ninety minutes, just before we're treated to the Million Disco Ball March, the Mount Olympus mob that dances like Martha Graham and emotes like actors in a Ray Harryhausen epic (Beane, director Christopher Ashley and choreographer Dan Knechtges do a fabulous job of leaping from highbrow to lowbrow in instants) resign themselves to the inevitability that the 1980's will spring forth a drought of artistic inspiration.  While Zeus (Tony Roberts channelling Sir Lawrence Olivier) grieves, "Creativity shall remain stymied for decades. The theater? They'll just take some stinkeroo movie or some songwriter's catalogue, throw it on stage and call it a show," the muse Clio (Kerry Butler channelling – oh, you know) assures him, "I shall take the improbably popular art forms in each moment of time.  The stage adaptation of the inferior cinematic offering, the musical of the box that is juke, and I shall use them to remind mankind that there is something greater than wealth or fame, and that is the human experience rendered comprehensible through art."  It's not Xanadu, the film that the creators are spoofing.  It's the Broadway that has cultivated an audience willing to spend big bucks to see a stage version of it.  (Or, more accurately, what it would be in less insanely capable hands.)

Disguised in leg warmers, roller skates and an Australian accent, Kerry Butler is a pixieish hoot, belting out power ballads and capturing precise Newton-John inflections while gracefully wheeling like a champ.  Her expertly light comic touch is perfectly utilized by Beane in one-liners that effortlessly breeze by as she balances wholesome sincerity with an impish sexiness.

Cheyenne Jackson, filling in for leading man James Carpinello while he recovers from a skating injury, is an actor who knows how to use his hunky good looks as laugh candy and as the dumb, but passionate chalk painter dude who longs to open a roller disco ("How timeless!" says Clio) he is adorably charming.

When he's not playing the stressed out king of the gods who seriously needs to get mellow, Tony Roberts plays the role originated in the film by Gene Kelly.  Sporting an expression on his face that seems to say, "Is this what my career has come to?," (especially during the mega disco dance finale) Roberts' patented wry tone is just right as the owner of a dilapidated theatre who had his own muse encounter 35 years ago.  In a flashback scene, Curtis Holbrook flashes impressive tap dancing skills as the younger Roberts.

The broad character shtick is handled with rowdy hilarity by two of Broadway's best – Mary Testa and Jackie Hoffman as jealous muses who curse Clio with forbidden feelings of love.  Along with Holbrook, the ensemble of Anika Larsen, Patti Murin (in for the ailing Kenita Miller at the performance I attended) and Andre Ward are a blast as various muses and gods.

All of the Jeff Lynne and John Farrar songs from the film are here, originally recorded by Newton-John and by Electric Light Orchestra, including top hits "Magic," "Suddenly," and "I'm Alive."  ELO's "Evil Woman" is added to the mix as highlight for Testa and Hoffman, while one of Olivia Newton-John's classics is given an improbable treatment that must, must, must be included in this season's Tony Award telecast.

But despite the hit tunes, the score really takes a back seat in this musical, with songs used primarily as punch lines and vehicles for Knechtges' kitschy, celebratory choreography.  And roller skating.  Don't forget the roller skating.

Back in the 1920's and 30's, some of the era's greatest wits – people like P.G. Wodehouse, George S. Kaufman and Herbert Fields – would write the books to musicals which may have had silly plots, but were nevertheless brimming with insightful social satire and cleverness.  With the diabolical creativity of Douglas Carter Beane leading the way, Xanadu succeeds in showing that mindless fluff can once again be wildly witty.

Photos by Paul Kolnik:  Top:  Kerry Butler and Cheyenne Jackson

Center:  Tony Roberts

Bottom:  Anika Larsen, Andre Ward, Mary Testa, Jackie Hoffman, Curtis Holbrook and Kenita Miller