Theater Review by Carol Rocamora . . .
Tammy Faye, the newest musical arrival on Broadway, has a lot to offer today’s audience. It’s a moving rise and fall story of a high-profile public American figure. It’s a bold and brutal satire of an aspect of American culture. It’s also an entertaining Broadway musical with a score by one of our greatest living pop composers.
Sounds like an embarrassment of riches, doesn’t it? Perhaps. But it also leaves you conflicted as you exit the theater. Disturbed? Offended? Moved? Entertained? Or all the aforementioned. And is that a satisfying confluence of feeling? Or a frustrating one?
Let’s begin with the dramatic rise-and-fall story—and, indeed, it is a precipitous one. Tammy Faye (1942-2007) was an American evangelist, TV star, and singer. She met her first husband Jim Bakker in the 1960s, when they collaborated as hosts on a popular children’s Christian TV show, featuring puppets. Together, they created and co-hosted a successful TV evangelist program in the 1970s called the PTL (Praise the Lord) Club. An instant success, it grew into its own network, generating over $100 million annually. From their profits, the Bakkers built a Christian retreat called Heritage USA, one of the most popular theme parks in the country, on the level of Disney World.
But their fame was short-lived. Tammy’s popularity was jeopardized by her on-air support of the gay community, AIDS victims, and substance abusers. Then came reports of the Bakkers’ huge financial excesses in support of their wildly extravagant lifestyle, as well as Tammy’s own addiction to pills. They were finally brought down by the scandal of Jim Bakker’s alleged extramarital sexual activities as well as charges of fraud and conspiracy, resulting in a prison sentence. Tammy divorced him and remarried (her second husband was convicted of fraud and served a prison term, too). She finally succumbed to cancer in 2007.
That’s quite a radical rise-and-fall, don’t you think? Book author James Graham (one of Britain’s finest West End playwrights) seeks to solicit our compassion for Tammy, played with glamorous megawatt star power by Katie Brayben. But that attempt is almost overpowered by the musical’s satirical dimension that exposes and savagely attacks the commercialization and corruption of Evangelism by the television industry. Tammy and Jim’s rise on Bunny Christie’s sensational set features a dozen-plus TV screens, in which various well-known evangelical figures appear, including Jerry Falwell (Michael Cerveris), Billy Graham (Mark Evans), Jimmy Swaggart (Ian Lassiter), and TV producer Ted Turner (Andy Taylor), as well as the numerous puppets. It’s quite a spectacle – but the “cheesiness” and commercialization of their TV program, under Rupert Goold’s aggressive direction, is so exaggerated and caricatured that it borders on the vulgar. And lines like: “How would you like your Lamb of God? “Medium rare”—are hard to digest.
So how can this kind of aggressive satire, bordering on unpleasantness and even ugliness, be entertaining? Enter Elton John, one of today’s greatest popular composers (and a great admirer of Tammy Faye), whose tuneful score provides the evening’s fundamental pleasure (if it can be called that). Elton John’s engaging songs (with lyrics by Jake Shears) provide Katie Brayben with the opportunity to give a Judy-Garland-sized performance that is impossible to resist. She’s coupled with the terrific Christian Borle, a Broadway favorite, whose charm as the conflicted Jimmy Bakker is equally irresistible. There are welcome moments of lighter humor bordering on vaudeville, featuring Pope John Paul II with a heavy Polish accent (on one of the TV screens, played by Andy Taylor again, in secret consultation with other world religious leaders on separate screens), and several amusing appearances of Ronald Reagan (Ian Lassiter, again).
The commercialization of religion and the corruption of Evangelist leaders of that era is a particularly sensitive issue today, and it will be interesting to see how audiences respond to it. Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker ultimately go before their TV audiences to ask for forgiveness. Is that enough to elicit the compassion we’re supposed to feel? In Tammy’s penultimate song, “If You Came to See Me Cry,” is she right? Or do we cry along with her? If we do, it’s thanks to Katie Brayben’s performance.
The newly renovated Palace Theatre, where the production is staged, gives the production (which premiered at London’s Almeida Theatre) a special glamor and sense of occasion, even with its dark content. Katrina Lindsay’s colorful costume design and Lynne Page’s choreography of the thirteen cast members and ten-member ensemble add to the spectacle, too. Then there’s the last scene offering a special theatrical surprise—featuring Tammy Faye in purgatory, talking to Falwell, and giving a huge hug to a survivor of AIDS named Steve (Charl Brown) whom she hosted on her TV show decades ago. Finally, there’s her dramatic ascent to heaven, greeted by . . . (you’ll find out).
Apparently, director Goold and author Graham are asking us to celebrate Tammy’s courage, faith, and tenacity, and to forgive her human flaws. We do, to some extent, all the while feeling a rueful sense of justice, watching these “men of faith” exposed for their corruption and hypocrisy.
Still, at the end, there is a lingering sense of inconclusion. Are we a culture that has lost its faith, any faith at all?
Tammy Faye. Now playing at the Palace Theatre (160 West 47th Street, between Sixth and Seventh Avenues). www.tammyfayebway.com
Photos: Matthew Murphy
