Walking into the Marquis Theatre with frozen margarita machines primed for consumption, I knew this jukebox assemblage of Jimmy Buffett songs was headed straight down the runway towards party time. The shocking revelation was that Escape From Margaritaville made Mamma Mia! look like Shakespeare. For today’s review, let’s follow Mr. Buffett’s lead. “Why don’t we get drunk and screw” with this musical.
First, let’s be positive, briefly. The men fare far better than the women in this production. Paul Alexander Nolan (Bright Star, Jesus Christ Superstar) nicely inhabits the part of Tully, the ultrafit beach bum lothario who is the lead singer at Margaritaville, a dive Caribbean resort. His goofball bartender friend Brick is amusing played by Eric Petersen. The winner in the performer sweepstakes was Don Sparks as JD, the grey haired party relic who is searching for his lost shaker of salt. The plot points are that obvious if you know the songs (and not as stupid funny as they could be). Lastly on the positive side are Michael Utley’s orchestrations. The music really sounded very good.
Now let’s get to the meat of the matter and try to understand why the cheeseburger was not in paradise. Three main problems: awful book, bad choreography and a too bland lead actress. Alison Luff has a nice voice but meanders through this musical with little stage presence and no real chemistry with Mr. Nolan. Admittedly things started fine but deteriorated when character development through acting was needed to fill in the blanks of so many one-dimensional people. Vacationing in the Caribbean, she has copious amounts of sex and then turns into a cardboard ingénue?
Written by television’s Greg Garcia and Mike O’Malley, the book is the major flaw. Shooting for and missing over-the-top silly, the cornball story arc added serious to stupid. They’re not just drunken wastes of human existence, they have real hearts! More than a few comedy lines failed to generate laughs, even amongst the singing Parrothead fans. The second act is wildly over-plotted with too many songs shoehorned in.
As for Kelly Devine’s choreography, the very few moments of inspired ideas were quickly forgotten as the generic party ensemble executed high school quality maneuvers. It’s copycat, check the box choreography. Spinning clouds instead of the spinning cupcakes from Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. The requisite tap number with the shiny outfit costume change (The Book of Mormon, others). Escape From Margaritaville is not the worst show ever and might even be improved with significant editing. Director Christopher Ashley (Come From Away) gives this all a professional sheen but it’s slick cruise ship fun at Broadway prices. Buy a foam shark hat and take pictures with your besties at intermission.