Like the US Capitol a century later, Versailles, that magnificent and ludicrously opulent monument to the French monarchy, was built on questionable grounds: marshland. Many in King Louis XIV’s circle side-eyed his decision to relocate the court to a swampy village miles outside Paris, site of a royal hunting lodge and great potential folly. But he did it anyway – the wetland drained, the sand imported, the running water laboriously engineered to support a palatial ode to absolute power.
The Queen of Versailles, a new Broadway original musical starring Kristin Chenoweth, rests on similarly shaky foundations. The show’s raison d’être is the reunion of Chenoweth, the diminutive diva who originated Broadway’s pre-eminent blonde (Glinda the Good Witch), with Wicked composer Stephen Schwartz. And for Chenoweth’s first lead Broadway role in a decade, the pair, along with author Lindsey Ferrentino, have selected a curious comeback vehicle: a shopaholic billionaire’s wife, proud builder of the largest private residence in America, unrepentant believer in the spoils of American capitalism.
Certainly the life of Jackie Siegel, a middle-class striver who succeeded in marrying the owner of the largest privately owned timeshare company in America – that would be David Siegel (F Murray Abraham), about as central to the proceedings as Abraham’s voice is suited for a musical – gives Chenoweth plenty to chew on. The actor, forever toeing the line between sweet Middle America and New York camp, blazes through the role of an unapologetically new money blonde with big hair, big (fake) breasts and big appetite for all things big (“If you can make it bigger, do!” she trills). As odious as Jackie’s ostentatiously pointless, terrifically tacky wealth can read in the year 2025, it is difficult not to root for her, as Chenoweth relishes every bedazzled hot pink outfit, shameless punchline and literal emphasis on her “keep on thrustin’” mantra. Chenoweth’s gusto, her operatic and distinctively heady soprano, her decades-long grip on the tone of delusional but lovable blonde gives what should be easily risible stuff a nice lacquer of heroism.
She is the star of this ornate production, and that is unfortunate. Based in part on Lauren Greenfield’s 2012 documentary on the Siegels’ quest to build a scale-model Versailles in the Florida swamp, the Queen of Versailles, like the American McMega-mansion it recreates, is lavish, unwieldy, pointless and seemingly unfinished. At times, the bloated production – the show, directed by Michael Arden, runs nearly three hours with intermission – invokes the French aristocracy’s follies of yore, with Louis XIV and his luxuriously costumed court playing the Greek chorus to the Siegels’ far less regal extravagances. It is in part multimedia spectacle of American trash – an elaborate collage of aughts-era construction and live camera work (stunning scenic and video design by Dane Laffrey) that makes for the one of the most infinitely layered stages I’ve seen. It is in part American camp, as Chenoweth’s Jackie self-mythologizes her climb from waitress to IBM engineer to boob job to pageant queen to trophy wife, an ode to hustle with a few bum notes (such as, you know, spousal abuse) that the show, like its narrator, treat as the unpleasant but necessary gristle for a winner.
It’s in part family drama triangle, between Jackie, her black sheep daughter Victoria (Nina White), and foster-cousin Johnquil (Tatum Grace Hopkins), an abjectly poor outsider who takes quickly to the Siegels’ extremely late-aughts materialism (credit to costume designer Christian Cowan: the 2008 references are painfully accurate.) And it’s in a clumsy commentary on American wealth worship, with a pointed reference to a redone east wing (ha!) and a reminder, courtesy of Marie Antoinette (Cassondra James), that we have perhaps outdone the Sun King when it comes to tacky aristocracy.
That moment – like a brief, heartbreaking interlude from Filipino nanny Sofia (Melody Butiu), making the most with a little) who lives in Victoria’s old playhouse, or David Siegel jokingly questioning why he gets a government bailout in 2009 when his broke lessees don’t (the financial crash is a relative blip) – should cut deeper. But they feel like self-conscious footnotes to Jackie’s staggering tome of vapidity and delusion. As it is, this sprawl makes for an absolute mess, strung together by music that is at best forgettable, if suitable to Chenoweth’s still-lovely voice, and at worst unpleasantly deranged (The Ballad of the Timeshare King), underbaked (a ballad to a dead lizard) or outright offensive (Little Houses – you know, the lower-middle class kind – which have, of course, “big hearts”.)
Whatever fine points Schwartz and Co hope to make are instead subsumed by Chenoweth’s gale-force performance – fun, in a diva-off with Marie Antoinette, and altogether less moving when the subject is Jackie’s spendthrift determination, even after devastating (and jarring) tragedy. A final should-be shattering number, meant to convey Jackie’s staggering loneliness amid the pitiless marble and mirrors – once again, this set! – is no Rose’s Turn, conveying only Chenoweth’s aptness for another starring role. It is, of course, not the Queen of Versailles’s fault that she has her cake as food assistance lapses while the White House gets re-gilded. But you can forgive us for not caring.
