Two new Broadway productions offer boatloads of entertainment but skirt around serious examination of their subjects. That’s perfectly okay; neither the revival of Plaza Suite, nor MJ: The Musical, the jukebox-bio musical of the late King of Pop, are meant to be anything more than a lighthearted night out. Yet they hint ever so slightly at the darker issues lurking just beneath their jolly surfaces.
MJ (at the Neil Simon Theater, named for Plaza Suite’s author) also takes place in an earlier era, celebrates pure showmanship, and avoid uncomfortable issues skulking beneath its glittery surface. This elaborate celebration of Michael Jackson’s artistry takes place in 1992 during rehearsals of his “Dangerous” tour, conveniently just before accusations of pedophilia against the star were beginning to emerge.
Employing Jackson’s vast catalogue of hits for its score and featuring breathtakingly spectacular choreography and staging by Christopher Wheeldon, MJ focuses on the artist’s onstage persona and his output, giving scant attention to his “inner demons.”
Book-writer Lynn Nottage has been put in an impossible position. In order to gain the blessing of the Jackson estate and access to the musical canon, the creative team had to deliver a sanitized version of a tortured showbiz story. Thus, a double Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright has been reduced to the status of carpenter building a utilitarian bridge to link the songs together.
The weak book centers on Jackson recounting his fractured childhood and life story for an MTV crew as he painstakingly assembles production numbers based on his greatest hits. Jackson’s inner life, his sexuality, his attitude towards his blackness, in fact anything slightly troubling, is barely touched on.
But the audience for this show is not here for psychological insights, but for the music and the flash, amply provided by Wheeldon and augmented by Natasha Katz’s rock-concert lighting. As in previous musicals about pop divas Cher and Donna Summer, Jackson is played by three actors, all of whom are amazing—Walter Russell III (child MJ at the performance attended), Tavon Olds-Sample (teen Michael), and especially Myles Frost as the mature MJ, channeling his other-worldly dance moves and ethereal vocals. (Note: I was supposed to attend the show soon after it opened, but Frost had sustained a foot injury and I only recently caught up with it.)
Kudos also to Quentin Earl Darrington, commanding in the dual role of Jackson’s tyrannical father and his put-upon tour director, and Ayanna George as Michael’s compassionate mother.
MJ doesn’t present the full picture of a complex legend, only his onstage persona. Like Plaza Suite, it’s pretty entertaining, but tantalizingly incomplete.
