Tammy Faye

Tweet

Tammy Faye, the new Broadway musical arriving at the recently renovated Palace Theatre via London, has a great deal going for it: a score by legendary composer Elton John, lyrics by Jake Shears of Scissor Sisters, book by British playwright James Graham (Privacy; Ink), direction by Rupert Goold, artistic director of London’s Almeida Theatre, an Olivier Award-winning performance by Katie Brayben in the title role, and able support by two Tony Award-winning leading men Christian Borle and Michael Cerveris. Then why is it so unsuccessful as an evening in the musical theater?

Although Brayben gives a big performance as the titular heroine, Graham’s book makes all the characters one-dimensional caricatures. The title is a misnomer as most of the time is spent on the men in her life: her husband Jim Bakker, and evangelists Jerry Falwell, Billy Graham, Pat Robertson, Jimmy Swaggart, Marvin Gorman, and Oral Roberts, all of whom eventually conspire to bring the Bakkers down. Not a lot happens and most of that occurs on a television sound stage or off stage between the scenes.

The songs by John and Shears all pretty much sound the same and there is only so much inspirational music that you can take in a musical not meant for performances in churches. The musical staging with choreography by Lynne Page makes several of the songs rousing but this is only because of the razzle dazzle showmanship, not the actual material. None of the songs tell us anything we don’t already know from the dialogue, a fatal flaw in a musical. Brayden’s solos are impassioned but I challenge you to recall what she has been singing about after hearing them.

Starting at the end of the story, the show is unaccountably framed by Tammy’s visit to her proctologist only to find out that she has colon cancer. The plot then becomes a flashback beginning with her meeting Jim Bakker, a fellow classmate at North Central Bible College. He has a ministry in which he uses puppets that she joins. Next they visit entrepreneur Ted Turner and are not only given their own television program but their own 24 hours a day satellite network they name PTL (Praise the Lord).

Jim is carried away with the power and the glory and decides to build the overblown Heritage USA theme park with money sent in by viewers while Tammy becomes enamored of clothes, furs, cars and cosmetics. The pressure becomes too much for her and Tammy succumbs to pills to keep going. Apparently Jim was careless with accounting and the PTL network ended up owing $55 million in back taxes. The other tele-evangelists envy their success and hasten their downfall. With Jim in prison, Tammy redeems herself with a visit to the Betty Ford Clinic and starts from scratch as a religious singer and chorister. As directed by Goould, the tone of themusical appears to be satiric throughout undercutting the seriousness of the characters’ intentions.

As Tammy Faye Bakker, Brayden is asked to be cheerful and outrageous in Act I and then muted by the pills that cause her downfall in Act II. Other than this, we don’t learn much about her. As her husband and fellow founder of the PTL Satellite Network, Borle is too smiley throughout and seems to be parodying his own character. (He seems about to break into laughter at all times.) The other male evangelists all dressed in Katrina Lindsay’s bland suits are interchangeable except for the fierce performance by Cerveris as Jerry Falwell who ends up as the Bakkers’ nemesis. If the Archbishop of Canterbury, Pope John Paul II and Thomas S. Monson, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, actually did confer by telephone about the Bakkers’ ministry and later the scandals in the Electric Church, the portrayal here seems comic and hard to take seriously.

Another flaw in the production is the set by Bunny Christie and video by Finn Ross, a wall of television sets which change color and patterns, as well as occasionally open as windows for conversations between the minor characters. At various moments Tammy Faye rises on a pedestal center stage which is sometimes explained, and sometimes not. As a result, the whole show looks like a touring production done on the cheap for easy travel capability. At times Neil Austin’s lighting design dresses up the set but only tends to make it more garish and theatrical. Brayben’s costumes designed by Lindsay become and more colorful but don’t really develop her look. (As she is onstage almost all of the time, she really doesn’t have time for many costumes changes.) The sound design by Nick Lidster for Autograph at times makes the words of the songs unintelligible.

It is ironic that the musical of the life of Tammy Faye should prove to be so lame since Michael Showalter’s 2021 biopic starring Jessica Chastain (Academy Award, 2022), Andrew Garfield, Cherry Jones and Vincent D’Onofrio demonstrated how theatrical and dramatic this story could be. Elton John’s Broadway musicals (The Lion King, Aida, Billy Elliott, Lestat) seem to fall into two categories and this new show seems to be among the lesser ones. Katie Brayben and Michael Cerveris’ bravura performances may still be remembered at Tony Awards time in the spring of 2025.

Tammy Faye (through December 8, 2024)

Palace Theatre, 160 W. 47^th Street, in Manhattan

For tickets, visit http://www.tammyfayebway.com/tickets/

Running time: two hours and 35 minutes including one intermission