‘Death Becomes Her’ Broadway Review: How to Resurrect an Embalmed Movie

Classic novels don’t make for good movies. And classic movies don’t make for good stage musicals, “Some Like It Hot” being the most recent example.

When something is great, it works because the material fits the chosen medium perfectly. Wrench it from that platform, and failure is sure to follow. Second- or third-rate material in one medium, however, can be improved by transferring it to another. Case in point is the new musical “Death Becomes Her,” which opened Thursday at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. 

The premise of a youth potion that promises eternal life, if you don’t mind being dead, is a clever play on the vampire legend. David Koepp and Martin Donovan’s original screenplay has narrative drive, but director Robert Zemeckis dipped into his usual bag of CG and green-screen special effects to squeeze almost every drop of comedy from this dark fantasy. When Meryl Streep’s head is spun around or Goldie Hawn gets a big hole blown into her abdomen, it’s all too gruesome and real to be much fun.

Directing the new musical, Christopher Gattelli gleefully embraces the material’s inherent tackiness. It helps that Derek McLane’s sets manage to be both grand and deliciously godawful. More important is the absurdity of the Grand Guignol special effects: When Megan Hilty’s Madeline Ashton (the Streep character) takes a shot-gun to her despised best friend, no attempt is made to make Jennifer Simard’s Helen Sharp (the Hawn character) look like anything but an H&M mannequin being thrown across the stage. When Helen pushes Madeline down the stairs, it’s obvious that a stunt double has taken over for Hilty in what has to be the best use of a grand staircase since Jerry Herman wrote “Hello, Dolly!”

Speaking of the Pleistocene, back then Ethel Merman and Mary Martin performed together in a one-night benefit on Broadway. Walter Kerr in the New York Times wrote a rave to say that Merman was the fire to Martin’s smoke. In “Death Becomes Her,” Hilty is the rear-end to Simard’s poo-poo cushion. Marco Pennette’s book gives Hilty all the grand-dame one-liners, but it’s Simard who gets the more unexpected laughs with delightful line readings that take a second or two to register. The sharp dialogue is in perfect tune with Julia Mattison and Noel Carey’s lyrics, and that duo’s music, which is merely serviceable, manages not to get in the way of the characters and the story, which Pennette has made far less convoluted than its source material.

Achieving much with little is Christopher Sieber as the star-pecked plastic-surgeon husband (Bruce Willis in the film). Michelle Williams, playing the keeper of the potion (Isabella Rossellini in the film), looks terrific in Paul Tazewell’s extravagant gowns. The show wisely uses the character, now named Viola, as a framing device and narrator, but Williams’ speaking and singing voice lacks the requisite authority.

A nice addition to this story is the creation of a sassy gay assistant to Madeline, played by Josh Lamon, who, maybe, should have been cast as Viola. Given a throw-way exit line, Lamon has the power to turn fluff into a dagger. The only thing campier is watching Nicole Scherzinger go full drag queen in “Sunset Blvd.”

The Zemeckis movie has one great moment. It never gets better than Streep traipsing on a hotel lobby’s circular divan in a disastrous musical version of “Sweet Bird of Youth.” On Broadway, that episode becomes a show within the show that is unimaginatively titled “Me! Me! Me!” That disappointment aside, the song “For the Gaze” delivers big time. And the timing could not be better. After this month’s major dud, “Tammy Faye,” where “the gays” are repeatedly pandered to, it’s fun to see a show that talks one on one to its core audience.

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