REVIEW: Moulin Rouge! revels in glitz despite a thin emotional core

iPhoto caption: Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman.

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/By Ilana Lucas / Nov 23, 2024

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“Truth. Beauty. Freedom. Love.” 

If we measure John Logan’s adaptation of the 2001 Baz Luhrmann film Moulin Rouge!, now playing at the Ed Mirvish Theatre, against the tenets of its bohemian ethos, it scores three out of four.

Logan certainly gives us a classic love story in courtesan Satine’s (Arianna Rosario) impossible choice between devoted but poor artist Christian (Christian Douglas) and the devilish Duke of Monroth (Andrew Brewer), who holds the purse strings keeping the floundering Parisian club of iniquity afloat.

There’s copious freedom in director Alex Timbers’ splashy production, epitomized by ecstatic can-can and tango numbers by choreographer Sonya Tayeh set to a wonderland of lightning-quick jukebox pop mashups that extend the original film’s musical repertoire to 2019, while hewing close to its anarchic spirit of playing fast and loose with any sense of historical accuracy.

The show has beauty in spades, from its lavish opening set by designer Derek McLane, an excess of concentric glittering hearts reminiscent of Boris Aronson’s classic “Loveland” sequence from Follies, to gorgeous, forced-perspective sets of Parisian streets and attractions. The enormous windows of an artists’ loft proudly display the word “L’Amour” in bright lights by Justin Townsend; sparkling costumes by Catherine Zuber, from ruffled can-can skirts in rainbow hues to diamond corsets, are a magpie’s dream. Visually, the show is a stunner, unsurprisingly sweeping the design categories at the 2021 Tony Awards.

But truth? That’s in short supply. It’s surprising that Logan, responsible for Red, the 2010 winner for Best Play and thoughtful meditation on artist Mark Rothko, adapts another story about artists that says so little about art. When club owner Harold Zidler (Robert Petkoff, stealing the show with his cheeky antics) accidentally propels Satine towards Christian instead of the Duke and the hot-tempered royal stumbles upon their love at first sight, Christian and his artist pals, painter Toulouse-Lautrec (Nick Rashad Burroughs) and Argentinian dancer Santiago (a suave Danny Burgos), must propose a show on the spot for the wealthy benefactor to finance. If it turns out the show’s plot eerily mirrors the men’s fight for the ailing Satine’s heart and soul? No matter.

Rosario’s Satine exhibits gravitas in her grim acceptance of her exploitative situation, stirringly regaining her fire and self-respect in the second act. Rosario and Douglas have impressive, pop-perfect voices that blend well together; unfortunately, Christian’s character is written as a wide-eyed blank slate, whose main selling point is that he (mostly) doesn’t see women as chattel.

Written with more depth and subtler emotional range, Toulouse-Lautrec gets a sensitive portrayal by Burroughs. It’s too bad that his big speech about how artists can’t be owned is undercut by the irony of the scene around it, and that many of the added contemporary numbers encourage that ironic atmosphere, seemingly designed to stick out rather than complementing the characters and themes.

One might think theatre a more earnest medium than film. But Luhrmann’s heavily stylized movie worked because, while equally silly in its vibrant, exuberant use of pop numbers, its grittier, seedier tone was almost painfully sincere, rather than ironic. It’s telling that the film begins in grimy black and white, the mournful strains of “Nature Boy” setting us up for the tragedy that is its driving force. Logan’s adaptation, instead, starts with the banger “Lady Marmalade,” which the film propelled to megahit status, showering the audience with confetti from the get-go and promising a non-stop party, tragedy be damned.

Despite the show’s runtime exceeding that of the movie, we’re never allowed to sit with the chilling sadness of Satine’s plight — the constant cuts back to cheery meme-worthy hits is an effective technique when showing how the denizens of the Moulin Rouge cope with selling their bodies, but less effective when presented as panacea for the audience to avoid feeling.

The adaptation shows the fine line between delightful and disruptive when artists slot contemporary songs into a timeless plot. Some new choices soar: Zidler singing an operatic version of Sia’s “Chandelier” during the Green Fairy absinthe sequence of drowned sorrows is an emotional improvement on the original (sorry, Kylie Minogue). Others flop: If, in this version, Christian’s exotic appeal comes from America, a place foreign to Satine, why does she sing Katy Perry’s “Firework” to herself, complete with “just own the night like the Fourth of July”? 

By the time the climactic opening of the musical-within-a-musical entirely axes the movie’s anthem of artistic solidarity, it’s clear that it may only take two to tango, but things don’t feel complete without all four bohemian dreams.

“Truth, Beauty. Freedom. Love. But the greatest of these is love,” Christian eagerly declares, prioritizing one value above the rest. While Moulin Rouge! remains a fun romp, I wish the musical had embraced emotional truth as eagerly as it did romantic spectacle.

Let us feel a little more!

What do you have Toulouse?

Moulin Rouge! runs at the CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre until January 12, 2025. Tickets are available here.

Intermission reviews are independent and unrelated to Intermission’s partnered content. Learn more about Intermission’s partnership model here.

WRITTEN BY

Ilana Lucas

Ilana Lucas is a professor of English in Centennial College’s School of Advancement. She is the President of the Canadian Theatre Critics Association. She holds a BA in English and Theatre from Princeton University, an MFA in Dramaturgy and Script Development from Columbia University, and serves as Princeton’s Alumni Schools Committee Chair for Western Ontario. She has written for Brit+Co, Mooney on Theatre, and BroadwayWorld Toronto. Her most recent play, Let’s Talk, won the 2019 Toronto Fringe Festival’s 24-Hour Playwriting Contest. She has a deep and abiding love of musical theatre, and considers her year working for the estate of Tony winners Phyllis Newman and Adolph Green one of her most treasured memories.

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