THE QUEEN OF VERSAILLES Previews — Page 15

You would never know this was a musical, I don’t think I’ve read a thing about the score.

"You would never know this was a musical, I don’t think I’ve read a thing about the score."

I posed this question and someone snapped at me "there are clips available from Boston." Whatever, right? I saw it Wednesday and this is my response to the score: it's as tonally confusing as the book and direction. Of course Schwartz can find melody in any circumstance. But here, he's hovering between the attempted verisimilitude of Carol Hall and the era-splice of On a Clear Day. To my ear, neither succeeds, and in the case of the top of act 2, a number in which Jackie is thrust into the Court of Versailles, the piece is embarrassing. I said it reminded me of "Louis Says" from Victor/Victoria - a cut song, by the way - and it's not glib. The show wants to hit the centuries-apart parallels very hard, and keep underscoring them monotonously, yet cannot find a way to make the case. A shallow woman wanting to build a house like Versailles isn't a strong enough premise on which to build a story, and as a result, there's no story.

I wondered why they didn't go bolder in the conceit - make Chenoweth both Jackie and Marie Antoinette - but that would require a more investigative analysis of the title character, and maybe segue onto On a Clear Day turf. There's no there there. She sings about her bougie fantasies, the one known song, "Caviar Dream," (a little reminiscent of "Disneyland" from Smile) but the song's dream doesn't come back to haunt her, or we'd get a memorable "Jackie's Turn," which the show seems to believe it's providing in the end. I found the finale - and I won't ruin it - not remotely up to the challenge, musically or emotionally, though Chenoweth gives it the big push her voice is capable of delivering. Schwartz gives Jackie a signature motif - "Amer-i-can royal-tee!" that is used like the "unlimited" motif in Wicked. But to state the obvious: Jackie is, um, so limited, that her intoning about "royalty" is neither parody nor earnestly revealing.

The show's most awkward number is the one given to poor F. Murray in which he dons cowboy drag and sings about being a timeshare king. It's kinda sort Will Rogers Follies-esque but it just sits there, Abraham and the ensemble men stretched across the St. James warbling an arch commentary that would be toothless on SNL. The score, ultimately, is a crashing disappointment from one of musical theater's gifted pros. My subjective take that I invite anyone to rebut.

Did the technical designer take conceptual drawings and accurately build the period drag from them?

The costuming is in no way memorable feature, and the look given the Chenoweth Jackie so one-note, she has no where to go for her big reveal by the end. The period stuff is certainly attractive and lavish enough, but like the show itself, has no particular wit. Nothing is heightened for parodistic (or other) purpose, and in failing to seek some unspoken correlation between Marie Antoinette and Jackie in design, an opportunity is missed. MILD SPOILER. If Chenoweth is going to share the stage with her supposed idol, shouldn't the design find a way to illustrate their commonality? But this Marie Antoinette has no character, no presence, and brief dull music (shouldn't their duet be a showstopper? Seriously.). When we meet her, it's no only without fanfare; it's devoid of drama, other than a cheap reveal of Chenoweth, lurking.

Updated On: 11/8/25 at 08:18 PM

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The subject's participation in the production - if only as a script/score adjacent presence, not story editor - clearly hobbled the creatives. Because the show's biggest failure is the absence of a recognizable point of view. At key points in the narrative when an edgier treatment might highlight the cost of such shallowness and narcissism, the show slides forward. Even past the show's one all too relatable tragedy: we do not see Jackie informed in front of our eyes, an egregious sidestep. To me, anything that would force this woman to confront herself is an obligatory scene. This piece pretends otherwise.

Using the real Versailles and its denizens to pad rather than explain is lazy. And Schwartz has failed to compose a number which might burrow deeply into the character's ... absence of character. If Jackie herself has no self-awareness, someone else with gravitas might take a stand. (Hell, imagine Marie Antoinette taking Jackie's inventory, comparing the two of them*? Functioning as a Che does to Evita? But that would be a show with more complex vision, beyond biopic tropes.) That absence of even an omniscient critical voice condemns the storytelling to "and then she" linear frame. The answer to "how did so many smart people resist more interesting questions?" the answer is "Jackie was watching them."

*Marie Antoinette was arguably a better person: during the severe famine of 1787-1788, the royal couple sold off royal silver and flatware to buy grain for the people; ate less refined barley bread to make more wheat bread available; She and Louis XVI were patrons of society, which aided the aged, blind, and widows. She adopted poor, orphaned children, a maid's daughter and a Senegalese boy, raising them with her own children, I can imagine her bragging about all of that to Jackie and saying "get your act together, girl."

Updated On: 11/9/25 at 09:23 AM

Last night was such an odd night at the show. I popped in to check out the final, frozen version and I’m guessing that the Westgate timeshare did a thing for its people because anyone it was mentioned, people in (what seemed like) the rear mezz and/or balcony, lost their minds. And also a large number of women throughout the theater were dressed in what I could only describe as “tacky outfits rich Staten Island wives going to a function at a local charity event that’s the social event of the season so pull out your multiple mink stoles and bedazzled dresses in 1989”. We were just mesmerized by all of it. And I guess Jackie was in the orchestra again since from the lobby during intermission we hear people screaming and shouting “Jackie! Jackie! Jackie!”

As for the show, I’ll give credit where it’s due, that since the first preview they’ve trimmed off about 15 minutes which makes it flow a little better. The problem though still remains that it’s not that the show needed trimming, it needs rewriting. I’m more curious about these reviews than any show in recent memory.

Huss417 said: "I've been back and forth on seeing the show. It's not where it's a big misfire like a Legs, Diamond, Carrie and some many others that would make me rush to see it before it closed.

This just sounds like it's going to be a show that people will just forget about. If it was years ago where I could just grab a ticket without being concerned of the cost I would go but I don't think I can justify spending the money on something like this anymore."

The $45 TodayTix Rush is very much a non-event. I’ve been seeing tickets available as late as noon for an evening show. That may be your best course to minimize financial damage.

No, seeing how about 10 mins has been trimmed off of act one, that has nothing to do with the diary and maybe only 60 seconds or so in act two dealt with that, if I’m remembering correctly (which i think i am)

rosscoe(au) said: "Thanks Auggie27 for the review of the score.

Whoever asked, no Sutton can’t be anything but rude and condescending."

I have to say, on repeated listens to the score as done in Boston, I like it a lot more than... well most seem to. I think Schwartz did a lot of clever cross referencing throughout (I don't mean the obvious "American royalty" theme). Is it as good as Wicked? No (but maybe it is worth mentioning that nearly every review of Wicked when it opened called the score unmemorable.) Or even as good as recent stuff like Schikanader, or the new material for Prince of Egypt? No... But I do hope that despite everything that cast album actually does come out.

I love your comments but honestly you're horrible at this website. Like, the grosses last week you don't understand to CLICK to view and now you can't see the clearly opening night graphic at the top of this website? Are you on a Motorola DynaTAC?

Updated On: 11/9/25 at 08:55 PM

Broadway Grosses: Week Ending 11/2/25 - BWW Forum

"Click HERE to visit the Broadway grosses"

Yeah, it's all there (including the graphic for tonight and the very clickable grosses) It's not my fault you're incredibly dense or actually think 44th Street in America's largest city is an "exact location", which was the funniest thing about that entire situation, which I still laugh about to this day. Read a map sometime if you can actually figure out how to hold one, babe.

Sutton Ross said: "Broadway Grosses: Week Ending 11/2/25 - BWW Forum

"Click HERE to visit the Broadway grosses"

Yeah, it's all there (including the graphic for tonight and the very clickable grosses)It's not my fault you're incredibly dense oractually think 44th Street in America's largest city is an "exact location", which was the funniest thing about that entire situation, which I still laugh about to this day.Read a map sometime if you can actually figure out how to hold one, babe."

Stalker

2 stars - 1 Minute Critic

"Let’s just skip this part, I — I don’t dwell on the negative,” says Kristin Chenoweth as MAGA millionaire Jackie Siegel on escaping the abusive marriage that pulled her from her New York City modeling career to the Florida swampland, where she eventually meets her second husband and begins building the largest home in America. If only we could do the same with The Queen of Versailles, the Broadway house of cards at the St. James Theatre.

Scenic designer Dane Laffrey’s requisite construction site eventually delivers the garish monstrosity it promises. However, we never see the “secret passageway” Jackie planned to connect her room with her disenchanted daughter, Victoria (Nina White), so they can “get dressed up together.”

Probably for the best, though that secret passageway would serve the audience better if it led out of the theatre. Full review HERE