Few people see American ambition and absurdity as clearly as Filipino nanny Sofia. Thousands of miles from her own family who she hasn’t seen in years, Sofia works for Jackie Siegel: mother to eight, wife of a billionaire, South Florida pageant alum, and a woman doggedly dedicated to building a 75,000-foot, $100 million home unironically modeled after the French palace Versailles.
“Miss Jackie is a queen because she says she is,” Sofia (Melody Butiu) tells the audience in new musical “The Queen of Versailles” — now to Aug. 25 at the Emerson Colonial Theatre.
In the shadow of the forever-in-the-works Orlando palace, Jackie (played by the perfectly cast Kristin Chenoweth) chases her champagne wishes and caviar dreams without caring who gets trampled by her climb. Husband David “Timeshare King” Siegel (again, amazing casting in F. Murray Abraham) indulges his three-decades younger wife in every and any opulent and tacky fantasy — see having Jackie’s face painted into a priceless 18th century portrait. Around the two, family and staff battle over scraps, scraps of wealth, affection, dignity.
Based on the 2012 documentary of the same name, “The Queen of Versailles” arrives in an era awash with queens and kings anointed by themselves, well, themselves and millions of social media followers and billions of ruthlessly captured dollars. Composer Stephen Schwartz and book writer Lindsey Ferrentino have a lot of funny and sad things to say about the age of Trump, Kardashian, and “The Real Housewives” — “Even married women can be beautiful!” But the musical works best when it spotlights what gets trampled when people deify capitalism.
The two most engaging and heartbreaking songs are delivered by Victoria, Jackie’s daughter from her first marriage to an abusive man. Played by fast-rising star Nina White (who did a book report on Chenoweth’s memoir in 6th grade!), Victoria sings that “Pretty Always Wins” noting her despair at trophy culture and “Book of Random” about how, despite her family’s wealth, her diary is filled with nothing but stories of trying to escape depression and anxiety through drugs.
“The Queen of Versailles” is purposefully cluttered. This is what happens when you follow the “Because I Can” story of a completely bonkers woman who has modeled her style on, again, unironically, the French Revolution. The stage is cluttered with cameras and a massive video screen to depict how the documentary defines Jackie. It’s strewn with construction equipment and scaffolding showing the constant remodeling done on the family’s house as its fortunes rise and fall and rise again. It’s crowded with actors dressed in costumes fit for Louis XVI’s court to represent the woman’s, once more, unironic, aspirations to be an American Marie Antoinette.
Often the production works in spite of the mess. One of the show’s big thrills is just watching Chenoweth and Abraham, who have so much chemistry and charisma they (nearly) make one feel sorry for the pair. Another is witnessing the reunion of Chenoweth and Schwartz, who earned their biggest hit collaborating on “Wicked.”
Partly, the mess is the message: How tidy can your life be when you have nine children and your favorite is a $100 million mansion that will never be finished? But the uncrowded, intimate moments, the human moments featuring characters trying to just get by in Jackie’s wake such as Sofia and Victoria, have the most to say.
For tickets and details, visit emersoncolonialtheatre.com