REVIEW: MOULIN ROUGE! THE MUSICAL—Segerstrom Center for the Arts
- TheShowReport
- Oct 28
- 6 min read
Updated: Nov 3
A World where Bohemians and Aristocrats Rub Elbows and Revel in Electrifying Enchantment.
OCTOBER 28—COSTA MESA
Yes, they can-can — and in 2018 they did-did — Baz Luhrmann’s absinthe-tinged 2001 film fantasia “Moulin Rouge!” was reconfigured into a glittery stage spectacular only seven years ago.
Unsurprisingly, Broadway has never been the same. And really, neither has Segerstrom Hall since it opened this past Tuesday, whose flats and furnishings will be clothed in rosy red, sparkly embers with a crimson wash poured over the whole business through November 2nd.
But does the production deliver? Oh, does it ever! Soon the stage is inhabited by corseted men and women with proffering gazes. Men with top hats and curled mustaches join these creatures of the night amid plush, red-velvet banquettes and black and gold trimmed furnishings.
The transactional element is signaled from the get-go in Luhrmann and creative partner Catherine Martin’s signature aesthetic, a delirious meld of modern Clubland attitudes and La Belle Epoque revolutionary fervor.
Derek McLane’s psychedelic valentine of a set populated by a decadent cornucopia of nesting hearts is on full display, effectively evoking the fabled Montmartre nitery in candy-box mode, later shifting — with the help of Justin Townsend’s daring, supple lighting effects — into stark film noir on Paris’s mean streets.
At this point, you may think you’ve wandered into a Gallic variation of “Cabaret,” or an immersive naughty nightclub. But when star dancer/courtesan Satine (Arianna Rosario) makes her entrance on a trapeze in midnite black, singing “Diamonds Are Forever” with a Shirley Bassey huskiness, she emotes just the sort of flower that would grow from such fecund soil.
Inspired by the French quadrille, this new kind of cabaret opens in 1889 at the foot of the Parisian Montmartre hill, designed for the very rich to come and slum it up in a fashionable district.
Nicknamed “The First Palace of Women,” the Moulin Rouge was never designed for tired, decadent people, only for glorious romantics, who believe in the glitz and the tinsel — who see the nightclub not as a shabby tourist trap but as a stage for their dreams. It was an instant success, igniting both lubricious adolescent fantasies and old men’s wishful thinking.
All the glamor from the movie is still here of course, but there’s a lot more grit now. The heroine is still Satine, the vedette of the louche nightclub of the title, which is run by her old pal Harold Zidler (Robert Petkoff, delivering a master class in pandering and sentimental seediness, although he is periodically allowed to drop the carnival barker bombast and show us the loneliness and ache within).
On film, Satine was embodied with a porcelain fragility and Marilyn-esque breathiness by Nicole Kidman, a silver-screen phantasm about to evaporate. Here Arianna Rosario plays her in a more realistic key, but no matter how bare her costumes, this Satine is wearing her sex appeal like a suit of armor. In John Logan’s baldly written new book for the show, Satine is portrayed as a feral survivor of the streets who began turning tricks at 13. Like Harold, her partner in deception, she sees love — or the illusion of it — as a commodity for profit.
Starring with Ms. Rosario is John Cardoza as Christian — a lovelorn man who embraces with his eyes and sighs — whose very essence, no, whose entire being, is composed of a deep need for Satine. As the two young lovers, Mr. Cardoza’s Christian and Satine steal kisses and meet in secret, as her wedding day draws closer with the Duke. Still, she hides a fatal secret from them all. She is dying of consumption, or tuberculosis, also known in that era as the "Great White Plague," striking down young and old, rich and poor alike with no discretion. This is not a secret from the audience, who learns it early on, but unfortunately it is for Christian, who has by now fallen madly in love with her.
Gifted, eccentric, and suffering from a congenital bone disorder, the flamboyant Toulouse-Lautrec (a brilliant Jahi Kearse) and his eternally romantic partner Santiago (Danny Burgos) soon spark a business collaboration with Christian: They will write a show to spotlight Satine's brilliance, as well as "truth, beauty, freedom and love." Both become fast friends with Christian, embodying the bohemian spirit of creativity, dramatic flair and passion for art, especially the charming and witty Argentinean dancer Santiago.
The show must be financed, of course; enter the venal Duke of Monroth (a magnificent Andrew Brewer), who gnashes his way into the fantasy and agrees to fund Satine’s next production in exchange for her engagement to him.
Part of the genius of Mr. Luhrmann’s original film version — which teamed Ms. Kidman with Ewan McGregor as doomed lovers in a Bohemian, fin-de-siècle Paris — was that it put mainstream, latter-day radio songs into the context of a verismo costume opera like “La Traviata.”
John Logan’s story has been strengthened in the splashy stage production, however, while expectations of cinema-inspired visual splendor are met and even exceeded. As for its song score, you can forget about your so-called jukebox shows and their usual dozen or so standards shoved into a narrative. With 70-odd pop smashes here — from Piaf to Perry, from “Lady Marmalade” to Beyoncé — baked into its dialogue and DNA, MOULIN ROUGE! has a battery that never runs down.
It's like a nonstop game of Name That Tune, with each familiar vamp eliciting a squeal of recognition from the audience, and sometimes even a bigger roar of approval with “Roxanne” or “Firework,” or the scalding act two opener, Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance.” Music supervisor Justin Levine weaves the numbers together with remarkable variety, with recycled pop pieces zooming through the air like candy-colored shrapnel, whizzing by before the memory can tag them and make the blandly-familiar sound enticingly-exotic.
Vogueing through it all is a fabulous ensemble proudly sporting Catherine Zuber’s period-faithful yet showbiz-heightened costumes as if on a Fashion Week runway, each bustier or tux or gown more audacious than the last, completely capturing the cinematic splendors of Mr. Luhrmann’s universe into theater lover’s language. Yet, in all its heartstrings-tugging, alarmingly effective glory, MOULIN ROUGE! THE MUSICAL has managed to attain a magical balance of wallowing unapologetically in edgy emotion, while also not taking itself too seriously.
SEGERSTROM CENTER FOR THE ARTS PRESENTS — MOULIN ROUGE! THE MUSICAL; Based on the 2001 Twentieth Century Studios Motion Picture that was written by BAZ LUHRMANN and CRAIG PEARCE; with Book by JOHN LOGAN; by special arrangement with BUENA VISTA THEATRICAL; Director ALEX TIMBERS; Choreographer SONYA TAYEH; Music Supervisor/Co-Orchestrator/Arrangements & Additional Lyrics by JUSTIN LEVINE; Dance Arrangements by JUSTIN LEVINE & MATT STINE; Co-Orchestrators: KATIE KRESEK/CHARLIE ROSEN/MATT STINE; Production Stage Manager PAIGE GRANT; Scenic Designer DEREK MCLANE; Lighting Designer JUSTIN TOWNSEND; Sound Designer PETER HYLENSKI; Costume Designer CATHERINE ZUBER; Hair Designer DAVID BRIAN BROWN; Makeup Designer SARAH CIMINO; Creative Services BAZ LUHRMANN/CATHERINE MARTIN.
WITH: ARIANNA ROSARIO; (Satine Alternate is JERICA EXUM); JOHN CARDOZA as Christian (Opening Night); JAY ARMSTRONG JOHNSON; ROBERT PETKOFF; JAHI KEARSE; ANDREW BREWER; KAITLIN MESH; DANNY BURGOS; AMARA BERHAN; RODNEY THOMPSON; RENEE MARIE TITUS; MATEUS BARBOSA DA SILVA; GABRIELLA BURKE; RUNAKO CAMPBELL; RHYS CARR; YOSSI CHAIKIN; DARIUS CRENSHAW; NICOLAS DE LA VEGA; JORDAN FIFE HUNT; NATHAN FISTER; JEREMY GASTON; COLLIN HEYWARD; CHARIZMA LAWRENCE; KATIE LOMBARDO; MEGHAN MANNING; AMANDA MITCHELL; LUKE MONDAY; KENNETH MICHAEL MURRAY; ELYSE NIEDEREE; LUKE RANDS; LOGAN GRAY SAAD; MAIA SCHECHTER; ADEA MICHELLE SESSOMS; JEFF SULLIVAN; CARMELLA TAITT; JORDAN VASQUEZ; JERALD VINCENT; JERICA EXUM.
MOULIN ROUGE! THE MUSICAL runs October 28th through November 2nd in Segerstrom Hall with performances on Thursdays and Fridays at 7:30PM; Saturdays at 2PM and 7:30PM, and Sundays at 1PM and 6:30PM at Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Dr, Costa Mesa, CA 92626. Tickets can be purchased online at www.scfta.org.
CHRIS DANIELS
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT REVIEWER
THE SHOW REPORT
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