Playwright: Book by Stephen Elliot and Allan Scott from the movie. At: Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Congress Pkwy. Tickets: 1-800-775-2000; www.BroadwayInChicago.com; $25-$85. Runs through: March 30
The biggest expense for Priscilla Queen of the Desert is razors and shaving creamso much glorious man-flesh on display and not a single chest, leg or armpit hair to be seen. Makes you wonder 'bout them crotches.
They must be spending money on manscaping, honey, 'cause they sure haven't spent it on scenery in this jukebox musical based on the 1994 Australian cult film about drag queens in the Oz outback. Not that there isn't much to enjoy and savor in this shallow but dazzlingly Day-Glo disco-fest, but if you think it might look just a little bit like Australia or, actually, anyplace, you'd be wrong. The entire show is performed in a multicolored limbo of computerized LED lighting that rarely uses more than 15 feet of stage depth or provides more than a minimal sense of place. This touring version is built so that one size can fit any theater you throw it in.
OK, those who go to Priscillapresumably those who love the movie, drag artistes of all stripes and several generations of disco babiesare not going for the scenery. They are going for the evergreen songs (some going back to my own dancing days in the Late Pleistocene), the maudlin and thoroughly predictable story and most of all for the high energy and the fuckin' costumes, both of which Priscilla Queen of the Desert has in spades. It's a curiously cliched combination of a gay Magic Mike, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure and Beach Blanket Babylon with dancing cupcakes, three-foot-high wigs, a chorus of high-stepping paint brushes and hooped gowns bigger than bathtubs. It's fantasy drag or nightmare drag, take your pick.
Fortunately, Priscilla is populated by first-class talent in the persons of Wade McCollum, Bryan West and Scott Willis as Tick, Adam and Bernadette (transgender but played by a man), respectively.
They have great voices, great moves and bright personalities which go far to cover the thin writing. Indeed, just like Mamma Mia, nothing in this show takes itself too seriously, which is the right attitude. The second act is too long by two musical numbers, and the intermission is unnecessary because there's nothing at stake for the characters, but only critics worry about stuff like that. Most ticket-buyers will take a cue from the guy in front of me, who jumped up and started to boogie during the overture.
Tim Chappel and Lizzy Gardiner designed the over-the-top costumes (several of which are directly from the movie); Ross Coleman provided the plentiful but unspectacular choreography (hey, what can you do in six-inch platform shoes?); and the peppy musical direction is by Brent Frederick in arrangements by Stephen "Spud" Murphy that make disco sound like art.