THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

The thought of Peter Allen returning to Broadway will make at least one New York Times theater critic shudder with dread. An icon in his homeland of Australia, renowned for songwriting (like Melissa Manchester's 'Don't Cry Out Loud') and energized concert performances, Allen took to Broadway's stage in 1989 with an ill-conceived vehicle of his own conception: Legs Diamond. Casting himself as a cold-blooded mobster—who took time out to warble beautiful showtunes— Legs Diamond was mauled viciously by The New York TImes and ran only 64 performances.

There's a bittersweet poignance to Allen's reappearance over a decade later in The Boy From Oz, a brisk musical journey from his difficult childhood in Australia, introduction to Judy Garland, marriage to Liza Minnelli, relationship with Gregory Connell, and death from AIDS in 1992. Portrayed with vitality, sexiness and one helluva voice by Hugh Jackman, Allen's posthumous return to the Great White Way is a proud encore ... and respectable testament to the gay artist's place in pop culture history.

'I think that a lot of people, whether critics or those who never saw him perform live, don't give him his due for his musical legacy,' muses Bruce Cudd, Allen's former assistant and caregiver until his death. 'That it isn't of sufficient importance to warrant a serious piece like an expensive musical that's analyzing and celebrating his life. People focus way too much on how could Liza marry a gay man and how could he deceive her, and it just wasn't like that.'

Jackman guides us through Allen's extraordinary showbiz existence. Born in 1944 as Peter Woolnough in NSW's small town of Tenterfield, Australia, even as a little boy (played by 11-year-old showstopper Mitchell David Federan) Allen starved for the spotlight, amusing momma (Beth Fowler) but leaving his troubled father (Michael Mulheren) unimpressed. Come the late 1950s Allen joined forces with guitarist/singer Chris Bell as The Allen Brothers, gaining fame at home thanks to a hit song, 'My Secret.' The pair toured the Far East, meeting Judy Garland (uncannily channeled by Isabel Keating) in Hong Kong. Judy introduced Allen to her daughter, Liza Minnelli (an astounding Stephanie J. Block), and the pair got engaged.

By 1970, Allen and Minnelli split—due to his gayness and promiscuity—as have The Allen Brothers. So Allen begins making a name for himself as a solo performer and songwriter. He meets and falls in love with Gregory Connell, a Texan who helps shape his flamboyant, memorable public persona, including those Hawaiian shirts. Fame grows, Allen plays Radio City Hall, and the Legs Diamond debacle transpires, but career takes second priority when Connell grows sick and dies from AIDS. By 1991, Allen himself fell ill, returning to Sydney to play final sold-out crowds. In 1992, Allen succumbed to AIDS complications, but as evidenced by the grand, Vegas-style finale of 'I Go To Rio,' his dreams had come true and his overwhelming joy and music left a mark on the world—and Broadway at long last.

Like Allen, The Boy From Oz originated down under. In 1998, Sydney's Her Majesty Theatre saw Todd McKenney inhabiting the role of Allen and Chrissie Amphlett, member of exalted Aussie pop group The Divinyls, as Garland. Nick Enright (who passed away in March of this year) served as the production's original librettist, and the show ran for two years. Come 2001, openly gay London-based playwright Martin Sherman (Bent) was drafted by producer Robert Fox to re-open the show's book for a Broadway mounting. A professed fan of Allen's, Sherman had seen him live in concert years earlier, but they never spent any significant face time together. Or bed time. 'I'm the only person I know who hasn't been to bed with him,' Sherman admits with a laugh. 'I mean, every time I speak to somebody anywhere in the world for the last two years, they say 'oh, you're doing The Boy From Oz?' Well, in 1981 I happened to ... .''

Sherman's primary source of research and reference (carnal or otherwise) while writing The Boy From Oz was Stephen MacLean's same-titled 1996 biography. He also combed over movie/TV footage, articles and interviews. A cornucopia of Allen's songs—including 'Don't Cry Out Loud,' the Oscar-winning 'Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do),' 'Once Before I Go,' 'You And Me (We Wanted It All), 'Love Don't Need a Reason' (co-written by Michael Callen), and 'I Go To Rio'—are placed strategically within the play's storyline. For instance, Garland, worried that her daughter is about to make the same mistake she has—marrying gay men—warns Allen that 'sometimes your heart is in Venus, but your penis is on Mars.' A fantastic analogy that takes on resonance when Minnelli and Allen, soon thereafter, duet 'Arthur's Theme,' which features the refrain 'when you get caught between the moon and New York City, I know it's crazy but it's true.'

There's certainly no shortage of public and private discussion about that crazy but true marriage, which lasted from 1967 to 1974 (they were separated in 1969). Allen was already well attuned to his sexual tastes—to wit, we discover that on the evening he met Garland in Hong Kong, he had coincidentally slept with her male date.

Sherman is of the opinion that some gays and heterosexuals will overlook sexual instincts for emotional attachment, support, and love, marrying someone even though chemistry argues otherwise. 'I find that a very interesting part of the story because it's something that happens to a lot of young gay men and also young straight men,' he says. 'They fall in love with somebody that [doesn't fit into] their sexual orientation and they try to have a relationship. I have a straight friend, quite young, and he fell in love with an older guy! They had a real serious relationship for about a year and a half, he really loved him and it was very sexual and all that, but finally he couldn't hide from the fact that he was straight and attracted to women! So the relationship ended.'

Elaborating further on the relationship between Allen and Minnelli, Block adds that 'they were both ridiculously fun. Peter said he was the male mirror image of what Liza was. They both could live the crazy lifestyle of staying out till six o'clock in the morning, they both were so charismatic, but when they came back home it was a security just knowing there's this other person who cares for me and will take care of me. A beautiful thing.'

The cast and crew's experiences with Jackman are also quite beautiful. Sherman and Block laud high praise upon the Australian, dubbing him a consummate professional who immerses himself wholly into Allen's showmanship, tossing a leg up on the piano keys and sliding across its top.

There's nightly thrills for Jackman's gay admirers. During the second act, he takes off his shirt, a scene that regularly elicits hoots, applause and whistles from audiences. 'Peter would have been in love with Hugh Jackman!' adds Cudd. 'He loved handsome men. Plus Hugh is so talented in every way, so all-around talented it's incredible.'

Allen's gayness is certainly a part of The Boy From Oz, and Jackman doesn't flinch from it, but there's nothing quite as raunchy as, say, the crotch-stroking antics of Cabaret's emcee. Of course, back in his day, Allen didn't need to rub anyone's crotch onstage to incite homophobia, even from his fellow queers. 'I think he got it both ways—I'm sure he was scorned by closeted gays for being too gay and I think probably there were gay militants who scorned him for not being gay enough because he never actually got onstage and said I'm gay,' Sherman proffers. 'That's why I have that line when he first meets Greg. Greg says 'gays think of you as an Uncle Tom and straights think you're a screaming queen.' Peter doesn't actually reply to that accusation. But frankly, that would have been the next step if he had lived. It's clear that had he lived he would've been very, very militant and completely verbally out.'

Of course, Allen never let things get him down too low. As we learn in the show, Allen was always ready with a funny line and a smile, the reason for which we learn by Oz's end. 'I'd say the most positive, troubling and inspired thing about Allen was that he was always so much good fun,' Sherman attests. 'The troubling thing about that is it probably covered a lot of what he was really feeling. He probably had difficulty in really expressing himself, which again is something we find out, finally at the end, why he's like that. But that was also probably the loveliest thing about him at the same time. The message that comes from everybody who knew him is how fun he was.'

The Boy From Oz, Imperial Theatre. Call (212) 239-6200 for tickets and info. See www.theboyfromoz.com .