Susan Granger’s review of “Tammy Faye” (Palace Theater on Broadway)
Was it ghoulish to accept an invitation to review Elton John’s ill-fated “Tammy Faye” Broadway musical when its closing notices were posted for December 8, having opened on November 14? I don’t think so.
I was curious just how bad it was. How did it compare with “Carrie” (1988), which shut after five performances, or Bono’s “Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark” (2011) that ran for three years but never recouped its $75 million investment?
What about Jimmy Buffett’s “Escape to Margaritaville” (2017), which I actually enjoyed, or “King Kong” (2018) with its often-malfunctioning puppet, or “Diana: The Musical” (2021) about Diana, the Princess of Wales?
Not unlike Jessica Chastain’s movie “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” (2001), Elton John’s biographical musical chronicles how Tammy Faye Messner (Katie Braynen) and her ambitious husband Jim Bakker (Christian Borle) went from small-town anonymity to become big-time televangelists with their Praise the Lord (PTL) satellite network.
By fleecing their flock, the Bakkers financed a lavish lifestyle and were ultimately brought to justice after Jim was convicted of committing fraud in the late 1980s.
Problem is: at no point are either of the protagonists even remotely likeable – what with her drug addiction and his adulterous philandering. Even Tammy Faye’s saintly compassion for gay men, unusual during this time period when AIDS was considered divine punishment, fails to engender empathy.
And it’s difficult to relate to sneering, sinister Jerry Falwell (Michael Cerveris) the Bakkers’ primary adversary.
Curiously, the creators of this particularly American ‘rise-and-fall redemptive’ saga are British. Elton John, of course, along with book writer James Graham, director Rupert Goold, choreographer Lynne Page, and – making her Broadway debut – Katie Brayben, who won an Olivier Award when this show ran on London’s West End.
On the other hand, lyricist Jake Shears, the Scissor Sisters frontman, was a Southern Baptist who grew up with revivalists and Christian television, and Bunny Christie’s towering TV cube-filled set evokes memories of the “Hollywood Squares” and the intro to “The Brady Bunch.”
Bottom line: Perhaps today’s audiences just don’t find politicized religion and hypocritical fundamentalism funny anymore.
More than anything, I feel sorry for the investors who learned, once again, that financing a Broadway musical is risky business.