B'way/Off-B'way Review: The Queen of Versailles; The Baker's Wife

Kristin Chenoweth in The Queen of Versailles.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

Stephen Schwartz has the distinction of having three shows running simultaneously on New York stages. In addition to the long-running Wicked, Schwartz’s songs are on display in The Queen of Versailles, a new musical based on the documentary film about socialite Jackie Siegel’s quest to build the largest private home in America, and The Baker’s Wife, based on Marcel Pagnol’s film, which closed during out-of-town try-outs before reaching Broadway in 1976. Both scores serve their respective shows well. But the former is a mixed bag of confused storytelling choices and Broadway excess while the latter is an intimate, delightful Off-Broadway charmer.

There are many satisfying elements in Queen of Versailles, not the least of which is Kristin Chenoweth’s magnetic star performance as well as Michael Arden’s fluid, fast-paced direction and Dane Laffrey’s elaborate scenery and clever video design, combining elements of campy bad taste and European chic. The same can be said for Christian Cowan’s century-tripping costumes. But it’s unclear how Schwartz and book-writer Lindsey Ferrentino want us to feel about Chenoweth’s character, the vapid but tenacious Siegel. We learn plenty about her driven struggle to rise above the middle-class status of her hard-working parents (solid Broadway vets Stephen DeRosa and Isabel Keating). She works several jobs in high school, gets an engineering degree and survives an abusive first marriage. But her goals and means of achieving them are questionable at best. 

Kristin Chenoweth and F. Murray Abraham
in The Queen of Versailles.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

After marrying the decades-older, fabulously wealthy Time Share King David Siegel (F. Murray Abraham, doing his best with a thankless role) and going on a honeymoon in France, Jackie decides to replicate the extravagant Palace at Versailles in her hometown of Orlando, Florida. Why? “Because We Can” she and the company sing in a number celebrating unrestrained consumption. Louis XIV (Pablo David Laucerica) and Marie Antoinette (Cassondra James)—both exhibit lovely voices, BTW—pop up in parallel-time scenes, meant to demonstrate what? That Jackie and David are just as bad as the French aristocracy who ended up guillotined by starving revolutionaries? (Jackie buys an actual guillotine without irony.) But then are we also supposed to admire Jackie’s pluck and determination while simultaneously disdaining her boundless avarice and materialism? 

Broadway Update: Tidbits

Scott Bakula

Both Purlie Victorious and Jaja's African Hair Braiding have extended their limited runs. Purlie will now play through Feb.4 at the Music Box and Jaja continued until Nov. 19 at the Samuel Friedman...Brooke Adams (Lend Me a Tenor, The Heidi Chronicles) replaces Jobeth Williams in Madwomen of the West, scheduled to open Dec. 11 at the Actors Temple Theater....Scott Bakula (NCIS New Orleans, Quantum Leap, Romance Romance) will headline a new musical The Connector at MCC Theater, previewing Jan. 12 and opening Feb. 6. The tuner about a rivalry at a 1990s newspaper features music and lyrics by Tony winner Jason Robert Brown (Parade, The Last 5 Years) and a book by Jonathan Marc Sherman (Women and Wallace, Clive)....Shucked will close at the Nederlander Theater on Jan. 14, 2024 after 28 previews and 327 regular performances....Here We Are, the final Sondheim musical, playing now in previews Off-Broadway at the Shed, has not invited nominating committees for either the Drama Desks or the Outer Critics Circle Awards and therefore has been deemed ineligible for those annual accolades.

Brooke Adams

Reconstructing the Carol Burnett Show: Part 40: The Specials

Before, during and after her variety series, Carol headlined a series of specials available as bonus features on DVD collections or on YouTube.

Carol + 2

March 22, 1966: Lucille Ball, Zero Mostel

(Released on DVD on Carol +2: The Original Queens of Comedy, and as a Special Bonus Feature on The Carol Burnett Show: The Lost Episodes Box Set)

Lucy and Carol in the
Chutzpah musical number
in Carol + 2

This is sort of a pilot that CBS ran to see if Carol could carry a hour-long variety show but they insisted she have two top-tier guest stars to guarantee big ratings. Lucy was under contract to CBS to do at least a few specials in addition to her regular series The Lucy Show. Mostel had starred on Broadway and won Tonys for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Fiddler on the Roof, and the film of Forum was out this year. 

The hour begins with weird, mechanical music (it sounds like a 1960s idea of a computer spinning its tapes) and an announcer introducing the three principals as the camera zooms in on giant caricatures of each. Carol enters and lavishly praises her two guests. Like a bull or rhinoceros in a china shop, Zero breaks up the pleasantries by saying these self-congratulatory intros are ridiculous (Zero played a man who turns into a rhino in Ionesco's play). What if plumbers behaved the same way ("Oh, Irving what a lovely wrench. Is that a new plunger?") He suggests they shut up and get to work.

The first sketch features Carol and Zero as a bickering couple celebrating their tenth anniversary who rediscover their passion for each other when it seems they've never been legally married. The two master comics milk the physical and facial gestures for all they're worth. Zero's face changes from a blank stare to a devilish leer as he realizes his wife is now a single girl and the audience applauds. Carol is equally exaggerated in her horny reactions to Zero's offstage singing of love songs as she dons a revealing negligee. After the sketch, Carol sings in her character, "You're My Reason" written by MItzi Welch to a sleeping Zero. 

In "Goodbye Baby," Lucille and Carol are sisters quarreling over Carol's baby. Lucy urgently needs to catch a bus, but Carol strongly insists she not leave until the infant says goodbye. Zero then recreates his performance as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof with "If I Were a Rich Man." After a commercial break (you can see the commercials on YouTube), there's a brief sketch with Zero as a psychiatrist listening to Carol describe her brother who thinks he's a frog. Carol scratches her nose and Zero writes it down as a nervous tic. The central joke is Carol then spending the rest of the scene desperately trying not to scratch her nose, turning pratfalls and falling off the couch. Carol next sings a slow ballad version of "Wait Til the Sun Shines, Nelly." The set-up is she's a wardrobe mistress named Nelly in one of Hugh Hefner's Bunny Clubs, warbling of her thwarted attempts at romance with Zero as the club's bartender. Bunny clubs were exploitative nightclubs with women in skimpy outfits and rabbits ears serving drinks to sloshed tired businessmen.

The hour concludes with Carol and Lucy as cleaning ladies pretending to be show-biz big shots as they dust, mop and collect half-finished cigarettes at the William Morris Agency. When Carol doubts her illusions, Lucy peps her up with the specialty number "Chutzpah" by Ken Welch which sounds a lot like "Hey, Look Me Over" from Lucy's Broadway show Wildcat. The choreography is energetic and the two look like they're having fun. Before the end, Carol pitches sponsor American Motors' safety record. We get a second of Carol saying good night to the studio audience and asking them to watch the show when it's on the air to up the ratings.

The DVD Original Queens of Comedy also includes the 1972 version of Carol in Once Upon a Mattress, the 1959 musical fairy tale which made her a star on and Off-Broadway. I'll cover that show along with the other two televised versions in a later blog post.