Christopher Wheeldon's MJ, the Musical opened in Previews last night at the Neil Simon Theatre in Manhattan. It is packed with brilliant performances from Quentin Earl Darrington who plays Michael's manager and father, Ayana George who portrays Michael's mother, and most certainly from Myles Frost, Tavon Olds-Sample, and Walter Russell III who play Michael as an adult, teenager, and child.
The show, which centers on Michael Jackson's rehearsal period for The Dangerous Tour in 1992, is so physically taxing that it is almost inconceivable how these performers will be able to put it on eight times per week. Thirty-seven musical numbers were staged in this preview performance which lasted more than 2-1/2 hours. For a comparison, An American in Paris has sixteen numbers, The Band's Visit has seventeen, and Hamilton has forty-six.
Lynn Nottage's book frequently and clearly shifts the time period from present time back to when Jackson was a child and back to when he was a teen. It is all handled brilliantly.
It is simply astonishing how Wheeldon has put this show together. It marks such a step outside of his comfort zone that it might seem like a step off a steep cliff. If it's a step off a steep cliff, then Wheeldon has shown that he has serious eagle's wings.
So where's the ballet in this production, you ask? It only lies between the lines now and then, so to speak. One may recognize a similarity to Balanchine's Prodigal Son where the Son in tatters is backed up against and attached to the upended table. Or Robbins' Fancy Free may come to mind when a performer starts to dive through someone's arms that form a circle. But all in all, Wheeldon's choreography stays true to Michael Jackson's Fosse fetish. The pop star's admiration for Fosse is illustrated on the front scrim with his handwritten notes of what the Dance of Tomorrow will look like: get all Bob Fosse movies dances, study these inside out, know every cut, move, music, etc.; study the greats and become greater; Flash Dance, All that Jazz, Bandwagon "girl hunt" number. His obsession with dance became our obsession.
If there is a weakness in this show at its first preview performance, it would be in the characters of Rachel and Alejandro who play a reporter and photographer on the hunt for the dark truth of Jackson's substance abuse. Something like these characters might be a necessary part of any story about Jackson, or they might not be. The audience can pick up on the drug use when MJ downs pills or when he's prescribed narcotics by a physician. This well-known aspect of Jackson's life may not require the frequent intrusions of a reporter and photographer who hammer home that dark story. But then, Wheeldon would be roundly criticized if he ignored it in the show.
This will be a great show when it emerges from previews. It already is.
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