Moulin Rouge

A-

Baz Lurhrmann’s 2001 cult film musical has been adapted for Broadway with a book by John Logan (Red) and a jukebox score curated, orchestrated and arranged by Justin Levine (Here Lies Love) into a production that is relentlessly entertaining. The opulent scenic design by Derek McLane (The Parisian Woman) transforms the Al Hirschfeld Theater into a wonderland of gold and red, featuring a windmill above one side of the proscenium and a blue elephant above the other. Catherine Zuber’s (My Fair Lady) wonderful costumes present heightened versions of 1899 Parisian attire. Everything is perfectly lit by Justin Townsend (The Humans). Karen Olivo (West Side Story, In the Heights) combines earthiness, vulnerability and charisma as Satine, the nightclub’s star who has no illusion that “courtesan” is anything more than a polite word for “whore.” She is well-balanced by Aaron Tveit’s (Catch Me If You Can, Next to Normal) Christian, an innocent from Lima, Ohio just arrived in Paris to make his mark as a songwriter. He fortuitously meets bohemian writer Toulouse-Lautrec (Sahr Ngaujah; Fela!) and tango dancer Santiago (Ricky Rojas; Burn the Floor), who enlist him to write the music for the show they hope to present at the Moulin Rouge. Danny Burstein (My Fair Lady, Fiddler on the Roof) gives a multilayered portrayal of Harold Zidler, the club’s impresario, who is eager to give Satine to the Duke of Monroth (Tam Mutu; Doctor Zhivago) in return for his providing financial backing for the failing nightclub. Satine and Christian are forced to hide their budding romance from the Duke. Satine also hides from Christian the fact that she has consumption. Logan’s book captures all the melodrama, but does not have much chance for nuance since it must make room for so many songs plus spectacular dance numbers with choreography by Sonya Tayeh (Hundred Days, “Rent: Live”). What makes this the ultimate jukebox musical is that the score is comprised of over 70 songs or fragments of songs from a cross-section of recent pop composers. Levine has cleverly built a musical collage that presents familiar material in unexpected contexts. Throughout the evening, there were chuckles from the audience as they recognized familiar songs. How much pleasure you derive from this added dimension depends on how familiar you are with pop music (In my case, not very). The cast is uniformly strong, the dancers are amazing, and the entire production, ably directed by Alex Timbers (Beetlejuice, Here Lies Love), is dazzling. If you just sit back and let all the over-the-top spectacle roll over you, you will enjoy yourself immensely. One quibble: the extended curtain call number, although terrific, undercuts the mood of the show’s actual ending. Running time: two hours 45 minutes including intermission.)