Queen has been on the street awhile. Ms. Isaacs's voice has the suppleness of Lena Horne's and a purity that is never sabotaged by its range. It's an instrument to cause goose bumps of pleasure. She rivets attention from her first appearance until the ambitious finale. As sung by Ms. Isaacs, Queen has backbone that only a good score can express with such immediacy.
Queen is important.
So, too, is her best friend, Sonja, played by the dynamic Ms. White, who won the Tony for best featured actress in a musical. Fine theater performances are spooky in the way they can slice through cliches to find original truth. Ms. Young sneaks up on you. She is Mary, just off a Greyhound bus, cheap suitcase in hand, a very blond innocent who has come to make her fortune in Big Town. The pimps immediately spot her and drool over the possibilities she represents.