The first words in Death Becomes Her, the 1992 movie starring Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn, are spoken by a man leaving a Broadway theater: “Can you believe that,” he huffs, “a musical version of Sweet Bird of Youth? What’re they thinking?”
The query doesn’t appear in the Death Becomes Her musical adaptation, perhaps because what’s on blatant view might too quickly prompt the tandem questions, “Can you believe that—a musical version of Death Becomes Her? What’re they thinking?”
What they’re thinking is what so many others are thinking, have thought, and will continue to think about any movie ever made: that it’s ripe for musicalization, no matter how well it did—or didn’t do—by way of reviews and at the box office. (Death Becomes Her fared well enough commercially, though only receiving a modest critical reception.)
[Read Frank Scheck’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
Now—surely in large part because it boasts not only a showcase for one diva but two!—we have bookwriter Marco Pennette and lyricists-composers Julia Mattison and Noel Carey adapting the Universal film, written by Martin Donovan and David Koepp, and, with bated breath, sticking closely to the supposedly amusing story.
So, what’s the story, morning glory? Apparently, it’s a satire on women obsessed with retaining their youthful looks as they advance into middle age and beyond. Broadway icon Madeline Ashton (Megan Hilty, assuming the Streep role) and longtime supposed best friend Helen Sharp (Jennifer Simard, in for Hawn) battle each other—just as Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins did in Old Acquaintance and Angela Lansbury and Bea Arthur did as Mame and Vera in Mame.
The immediate quarrel is over Madeline stealing Helen’s fiancé, Ernest Menville (Christopher Sieber). For Helen this is one time too many in Madeline’s stealing-Helen’s-fiancés history. With this theft, however, Madeline has a more pressing motive. Ernest is a renowned plastic surgeon. Madeline wants him not for the spiritual lift marriage will impart but for the face lift and who-knows-how-many-more body lifts he can haul.
The other significant plot element deals with Viola Van Horn (Destiny’s Child Michelle Williams), a sorceress who, when Ernest fails to satisfy Madeline’s desires, materializes in possession of a magic potion that restores youth (if not innocence) and, on the eventual downside, guarantees eternal life. That’s no matter what mishaps may occur, like a fall down a staircase resulting in a head turned 180 degrees on an unwrinkled neck or a hole drilled through a torso, both of which eventuate.
There you have this intended send-up of some women’s obsession with aging. There might be an issue to probe, but the depiction of these two harpies is so repugnant that it reduces the brassy tuner—as it did the film—to something consistently offensive. Men don’t come off well, either. Ernest, the only man prominent, is presented as someone as spineless as a current GOP House of Representatives member.
Another approach bookwriter Pennette takes—while following the Donovan-Koepp plot and eliminating only one lengthy hospital sequence—is introducing groan-inducing puns. Granted, many audience members laugh heartily at them, but they may be the same audience members who applaud mention of the f-word?
Working like demons having taken a potion of some sort, Hilty and Simard deserve praise for everything they’ve agreed to do—and unflaggingly. That goes for whatever whirling-dervish maneuvers they’re performing backstage as they quick-change Paul Tazewell’s costumes. Asked to be cattily aggressive, they’re putty in the hands of director-choreographer Christopher Gattelli.
Williams is sleek and svelte as she both starts and ends the action and with her mysterious flacon tempts throughout. Sieber is his usual reliable self in an ultimately thankless role. On the other hand, thanks are due the unidentified cast members who occasionally double for the headliners. Especially proficient is whoever’s executing the acrobatic tumble down the stairs in the copy of Madeline’s dressing-gown. Also, since the principals don’t do much recognizable dancing, the ensemble is consistently proficient, despite Gattelli’s numbers becoming repetitive.
Where Death Becomes Her never goes wrong is where Broadway musicals rarely falter: the design departments. It’s these contributions that so frequently allow mediocre works to look like the millions of dollars the producers put up and hope to get back. Here, it’s Tazewell buoying the vehicle along with set designer Derek McLane, lighting designer Justin Townsend, sound designer Peter Hylenski, Tim Clothier’s illusions, and, definitely, hair and wig designer Charles LaPointe. They’re worth their weight in gold—or these days, cryptocurrency.
OK, this is a musical, and when wishful-thinking folks decide to chase big moolah musical-wise, they usually understand the pursuit requires songs. This Death Becomes Her has ’em. Unfortunately, the Mattison-Carey score it boasts (?) resembles too many of the scores audiences presumably favor these days.
They’re scores outfitted with lyrics and melodies crafted to bring the leads—the women more often than not—downstage center to belt increasingly higher notes that end with the final caterwauled tone accompanied by the raised arm or, preferably, two arms, signaling the well-conditioned customers to cheer. Taking care that the lyrics are intelligible is less important, their registering as memorable even less so. In other words, nothing of wit or sophistication for these bosom buddies to deliver.
One song—another of the prodigious puns—is “For the Gaze.” Ostensibly, it’s a gag on musicals frequently attracting large gay audiences. Get it? Here it registers as an insult to that usually far more knowing crowd.
Death Becomes Her opened November 21, 2024, at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. Tickets and information: deathbecomesher.com
