BWW Reviews: XANADU Rolls Onstage for Fun Run at Boiler Room Theatre

It may not be great art, but Xanadu-the new musical onstage through March 3 at Franklin's Boiler Room Theatre-sure is great fun! Pure, unadulterated escapism, Xanadu is laugh-out-loud funny, thanks primarily to the book by Douglas Carter Beane, but you have to give props to director Corbin Green and his talented cast who bring the sublimely ridiculous musical (featuring the music of Electric Light Orchestra's Jeff Lynne and John Farrar) to life onstage.

Green's cast serves up the campy musical with style and flair, circa 1980-that long ago era of leg warmers, shoulder pads, mall hair, disco…well, everything that has provided fodder for VH1's long-running I love the '80s and which fuels my own hazy, sex- and drug-fueled memories of the decade-and they do so with reckless, yet altogether appropriately self-absorbed, abandon. Plus, they do it on roller skates at least some of the time. What could possibly be more fun?

Based on the 1980 groaningly bad cult film Xanadu that starred Olivia Newton-John, Michael Beck and Gene Kelly (!), which was, in turn, based on a Rita Hayworth movie from 1947-now there's a pedigree for a stage musical that most certainly appeals to "the gays"-the musical theater take on the story actually serves up enough intended comedy and entertainment to delight almost anyone.

Xanadu focuses on a Greek muse named Clio, who descends from Mt. Olympus in order to inspire Sonny Malone, a struggling street artist plying his trade on the mean streets of Venice Beach, California. Sonny hopes to achieve his artistic dream of creating his own "Apex of the arts," a place where theater, music, visual art, dance-all that shit, really-comes together for the greater good to craft something unlike anything the world has ever seen before. Naturally, that means Sonny hopes to open a roller disco. No, really. What would catch the 1980 vibe more eloquently and more succinctly than that? A roller disco, my friends, is the emblem of stagnant, unfulfilling 1980s imagination and creativity, the cradle of civilization for everyone who came of age during that decade.

When Clio first enounters Sonny, she has morphed (well, not really, but that's what she would do if special effects were readily, and cheaply, available) into a winsome Aussie lass named Kira who, outfitted in leg warmers and skates, rolls straight into Sonny's heart, in the process unleashing all kinds of wackiness and the potential for catastrophic consequences (as a demi-god, Clio will be sent straight to the underworld if she falls in love with a mere mortal).

Of course, you know from the very moment that Sonny steps onstage in cut-offs so short you can tell what his religion is-and Kira skates up in an abbreviated Grecian gown-that romantic entanglements will ensue. (I speak from personal experience, since 1980 was "my summer of white shorts," during which laying by the pool to deepen my tan and trolling gay bars in search of my own "muse"-yes, children, that's what we called it back then-were my favorite extracurricular activities). As contrived as it may sound, Sonny's search for artistic validation speaks to me on a multitude of levels (not the least of which is in my pants). Xanadu, without any artistic pretense, transported me back to my 22^nd year, flooding my heart with so many memories (of tea dances and poppers, Jennifer Holliday and Dreamgirls, registering to vote and falling into a bowl of potato chips…oh, lord, the stories I could tell…).

But who could ever have predicted that a Broadway musical (which opened in 2007 starring Cheyenne Jackson and Kerry Butler, ultimately running for 500 performances) based upon a movie with Olivia Newton-John could be so much fun? In fact, the relationship between Sonny and Kira remains rather chaste and old-fashioned, there's a subplot focusing on Clio's relationship with business mogul Danny Maguire in 1945 (when he was just blowing on a licorice stick), and the inclusion of a whole bunch of demi-gods, gods and mythological creatures who come together to flesh out the story.

Clearly, Xanadu won't change the world and that's so obviously not the aim of either creative team (BRT's or Broadway's), but if you give yourself over to the broad comedy of Beane's crackling script and the riotously over-the-top performances of the cast, you'll find yourself smiling from start to finish, laughing loudly at some particularly trenchant lines and humming the show's title tune all the way home and much of the music will worm its way into your mind's ear-why, oh why did I get rid of my stash 30 years ago?-but it's all in good fun. Hell, it's not like anyone held you at gunpoint to make you watch South Pacific. Wait a minute: I'm mixing metaphors, musicals and/or recent reviews. Sorry, gentle readers, I think I need a Fresca and vodka stat!

Director Green's tongue-in-cheek approach to the material serves it well and that good-hearted spirit permeates the production, replete with Billy Ditty's spirited choreography and Katie Delaney's terrific costuming (even the aforementioned leg warmers and the dresses worn by Bryce Conner and Humberto Figueroa-it's really best you not ask questions at this point) and the superb musical direction by Jamey Green and the performance of the score by his fantastic band (including Tracy Wise, Dale Herr, Doug Bright and Rick Malkin in addition to Green himself) which gives the production its credible foundation.

Jillian Gottlieb, a classical voice graduate of Belmont University, gives a perfectly nuanced portrayal of Clio/Kira, showing off her vocal chops while recreating the original Newton-John sound effortlessly. Her stage presence and the relative ease in which she traverses the stage on wheels is impressive and thoroughly appealing. She's nicely paired with Stephen Jones (an MTSU senior majoring in speech and theater) as Sonny, who has a noteworthy ass and looks like a far cuter version of Bill Murray than that phrase would suggest. Honestly, Jones' performance is charming, soundly based in musical theater tradition. In short, he does his professors proud while displaying a great deal of promise. Gottlieb and Jones' performance of "Suddenly" captures the 1980s MTV-in-its-heyday feel, while "Strange Magic" is wickedly fun.

Dan McGeachy gives a warmly realized performance as Danny Maguire, the businessman who originally built the Xanadu theater at the behest of his own muse (a 1940s Alabama girl named Kitty who looked just like Kira) and he does double-duty as the imperious Zeus, who stars in a production number set to "Have You Never Been Mellow."

Green's ensemble provides ample support for the principals, taking on a whole slew of characters with energy and focus. Kay Ayers, who is one of the best-if too infrequently seen-musical theater performers in Nashville (her "Evil Woman" is fabulous), is deliciously evil as Melpomene, and she is paired with Jordan Tudor (a sure doppelganger for Julie Brown of "The Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun" fame) in an example of wonderful comic teaming on the part of the director. The shared trust of Ayers and Tudor ensures their successful pairing.

Conner and Figueroa display a willingness to do just about anything for a laugh (and they know how to deliver), as do Cassidy Davis (who, quite frankly, looks absolutely gorgeous as Erato) and the always delightful and alarmingly focused Darci Wantiez (as Euterpe). It's essential in a show as much fun as Xanadu that all the actors are on the same page-and that each thespian is so obviously having enough fun to power the show through the end of its run. 

- Xanadu. Book by Douglas Carter Beane. Music and lyrics by Jeff Lynne and John Farrar. Based on the Universal Pictures film screenplay by Richard Danus and Marc Rubel. Directed by Corbin Green. Choreographed by Billy Ditty. Music direction by Jamey Green. Presented by Boiler Room Theatre, Franklin. Through March 3. For details, go to www.boilerroomtheatre.com. For reservations, call (615) 794-7744.

photos by Rick Malkin

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