If you have reveled in the cinematic atrocity that is Showgirls, its spoofing musical version will reward you with cranked-up acknowledgments of what you know is so inexorably wrong with the film. I didn't see Showgirls at my local cineplex when it was released in 1995, and if I did encounter it sometime later, it was probably on VHS via Blockbuster. After seeing Showgirls! The Musical!, I watched bits and pieces of the movie online, and it's fairly amazing to realize that what is mercilessly mocked on stage is so solidly deserving of the skewer.
If the audience at the Victoria Theatre had not been admonished in a pre-show welcome from the ample and amply crude hostess Lady Bear, it's likely there would be those in the enthusiastic crowd that would yell out familiar lines in Rocky Horror fashion. "I am not a whore!" would be a popular one. After all, Peaches Christ has built a loyal following for her 18 annual screenings of Showgirls bookended with onstage mischief.
When a live musical version surfaced in New York three years ago, a new way to celebrate the enduring camp classic here was perhaps inevitable. Peaches Christ Productions and New York's Mediumface Productions have joined forces to give Showgirls! The Musical! its regional premiere, and as fun as the results are, they become an absolute scream thanks to April Kidwell's recreation of her New York role. The role of Nomi Malone was a gut punch to Elizabeth Berkley's career, but if there is any justice in this world, it should send Kidwell's soaring.
What Kidwell does with this role of a Las Vegas newbie with big dreams is a source of constant comic delectation. Frequently going topless in no way inhibits Kidwell's embrace of knockabout physical comedy and hilarious overacting. Kidwell goes berserk when a new friend tries to determine just where she's from. "Different places!" she screams as French fries go flying from both her hands and her mouth. And when Nomi gets a job as a pole dancer, Kidwell could be channeling Lucy Ricardo as limbs flail as she galumphs up and down the pole.
Nomi mainly works as a lap dancer at a crummy club, but aspires to be in the topless revue at a snazzy joint where the star makes her entrance from the mouth of a smoldering volcano. The star of that attraction is Cristal Connors, an aging marquee name who goes out of her way to humiliate Nomi, seeing her as a fresh-faced rival while harboring lustful feelings for her. All the women of Showgirls seem to be at least bi-curious, and tongues do wag in a most literal fashion.
Peaches Christ cuts a daunting figure as Cristal, coming across as a kind of blend between Ethel Merman and a Sherman tank as she rules her roost without mercy. In the movie, Cristal's hedonist boyfriend was played by Kyle MacLachlan, which is also the name the character gets in the stage version. Tim Wagner plays the role with unusual normalcy for this production, but gets to let loose in the notorious swimming pool scene when he and Nomi copulate with the shudders of hummingbirds in heat.
Marcus Deison is another happy holdover from the New York production, playing both Nomi's sweet-as-can-be friend Molly and dancer extraordinaire James, who takes the promising Nomi under his wings. "You burn when you dance," he encourages Nomi, "like when I piss." In the film, their hot dance scene at a disco is so absurdly photographed that you can't actually see them dance, but on stage in Rory Davis' hilarious choreography, we see their full bodies in the kind of spasmodic moves a teenage girl might be improvising in front of a mirror.
Rori Nogee (also from New York) and Anna Muravitskaya play two of Cristal's woebegone backup dancers, and Bobby "Barnaby" Bryce exuberantly plays a choreographer unambiguously named Gay who dreams of being a showgirl himself. But Raya Light doesn't get much traction in the role of the rapist rock star who meets his match in Nomi.
Peaches Christ, who is billed as Joshua Grannell in the director's chair, keeps the production moving at a moderately fluid place, but knows how to accentuate the laughs that come with happy regularity. The spotty set is uncredited (unless Ric Ray's art direction and Patrik Hendrickson's carpentry cover that base), but Amie Sarazan's costumes are playful accentuations on the show's seedy themes.
Since this is a musical, the songs by Bob and Tobly McSmith must be acknowledged (music direction is by Peter Fogel), but the melodies are generically undistinguished, with lyrics that do throw off some quirky surprises or comically telegraph what fans know is coming.
"Everything is so wonderful, nothing could go wrong," sings Cristal in one of her production numbers, "unless someone pushes me down the stairs, which would never, ever happen."
Showgirls! The Musical! will run through Aug. 27 at the Victoria Theatre. Tickets are $25-$35, available at peacheschrist.com.