The first thing I should tell you about Xanadu, the musical I saw last Saturday night on Broadway, is that the curtain speech was worth the price of admission. Many shows have these fund-raising speeches in which a cast member asks you to donate as you exit, the money going to a worthy charity called Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. At Xanadu, the pitch was delivered by a lady named Jackie Hoffman, who plays two roles in the show. Bookmark my words: Any day now, someone's going to star this lady in a sitcom or maybe even a talk show and make an indecent amount of money. She was pretty funny in the show, too.
I never saw the movie of the same name but the creators of the stage version apparently decided to take its best part (the songs, mostly) and mock its worst elements, and the whole thing is done with such an infectious energy that you kinda, sorta, have to love it. I did, anyway. There's a ten member cast and here, I'll list them all: Cheyenne Jackson, Curtis Holbrook, Anika Larsen, Kenita Miller, Annie Golden (subbing for Mary Testa), Jackie Hoffman, André Ward, Kerry Butler, Peter Samuel (understudy in for Tony Roberts) and Marty Thomas. Butler and Jackson are the stars, with the former filling the Olivia Newton-John role. One of the biggest laughs I've ever heard in a theater erupted at a point when Ms. Butler was singing at the edge of the stage in her roller skates — there's a lot of skating in the show — and she suddenly looked for all the world like the key art from the movie poster — windswept hair and all. Then you noticed a stagehand at the edge of the stage, deliberately visible and holding a large electric fan on her to produce that effect.
The plot is…oh, heck. The plot's the plot of the movie. You can look it up in Leonard's book — something to do with muses from ancient mythology and one muse falling in love with a guy who wants to open a roller disco. This is set in the early eighties and at one point, the muses bemoan that America is entering a period of bad art where even the theater will flounder with shows based on bad movies and vapid pop tunes. How can you not love a movie that says that about its own bloodline?
It all breezes along quickly…it's a short, intermissionless show that seems to be catching on, partly because almost everything else on Broadway is closed due to the strike, but also because it's just a great fun show. I can't help but note that with its lower budget and small cast, it's a nice counterpoint to Young Frankenstein. I liked that a lot, too but I think I have more admiration for Xanadu. It was just as entertaining but in terms of budget, they did just as much with so much less. Plus, unlike the Mel Brooks extravaganza, they started out with a movie that nobody really liked very much.