The Wild Party (2000 Original Broadway Cast)
Ever since he emerged in the 1990s as one of Broadway's brightest hopes, the young and prolific composer-lyricistMichael John LaChiusahas been charged with the undeniably Sisyphean task of revitalizing the moribund musical. Along with such Tony-nominated efforts as 1999'sMarie Christine--his Americanized retelling of the Medea tragedy--LaChiusa has managed to galvanize the genre withThe Wild Party. Curiously enough, Joseph Moncure March's once-bannednarrative poemof Prohibition-era decadence is the basis for two vastly different musicals produced within the same season (the other beingAndrew Lippa's off-Broadway showat Manhattan Theatre Club). LaChiusa's work, which was produced by the Public Theatre's visionary director George C. Wolfe (who also collaborated on the book), kick-starts the new century with a manic, many-leveled, viciously satirical portrait--both brilliantly period and postmodern--of jazz-era alienation, sketching its "sexually ambitious" and "ambi-sextrous" promenade of characters with bold, flinty strokes. In addition to the 1928 poem, it seems equally inspired byThe Threepenny Opera,Stephen Sondheim's dark humors, even Ann Douglas's cultural history,Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s. LaChiusa depicts the party-turned-nightmare trajectory of the story through complex, polystylistic counterpoint, as well as such searingly straightforward numbers as "After Midnight Dies"; even the orchestrations (by Bruce Coughlin) are fantastically detailed and allusive.Mandy Patinkinis made to draw on his full repertory of shticks and gives a wildly over-the-top characterization of the vaudeville clown Burrs, while Toni Collette (an Oscar nominee forThe Sixth Sense), playing his unhappy lover Queenie who throws this mother of all parties, plays against him with toxic, combustible energy. For all the star turns here (including some economical but superbly effective cameos byEartha Kitt), it's the unflappable ensemble that keeps this party going till the bitter end.--Thomas May