Lisa Howard, Alison Luff, Paul Alexander Nolan and Eric Petersen in Escape to Margaritaville at the Marquis Theatre, New York. Picture: Matthew Murphy
Escape to Margaritaville continues at the Marquis Theatre, New York.
Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩
From the eponymous cocktails offered for sale in the lobby to the beach balls that come cascading into the audience at the finish, Escape to Margaritaville is a Broadway musical that works hard – really hard – to make you feel good. And it succeeds – if only intermittently.
The jukebox musical is built around the work of Jimmy Buffett, whose songs celebrate a hedonistic lifestyle often served up with a Calypso beat or country rock feel, and occasionally delving into a smart folksy mode. It’s music that has paved the way for some best-selling books and a diversified business empire that includes restaurants bearing the name of one of his biggest hits, Margaritaville.
The man has done well. How much more this Broadway venture, directed by Tony Award-winner Christopher Ashley (for Come from Away) will contribute to Buffett’s coffers remains to be seen, but you can’t fault it for not trying.
The show centres on a Buffett-like character named Tully Mars (Paul Alexander Nolan), a singer-songwriter who entertains at the rundown but still popular Caribbean hotel Margaritaville. He also serves as the spot’s in-house Lothario, providing short-lived romances for feminine guests. That is, until Rachel (Alison Luff) shows up and Tully is thoroughly smitten.
Rachel has come to the hotel with Tammy (Lisa Howard), her very best gal pal. Tammy is soon to be married to a loutish fellow named Chad who’s preoccupied with slimming down Tammy’s ample figure. It’s Rachel’s hope that a pre-nuptial island vacation might change Tammy’s mind. As for herself, Rachel is an environmental scientist more interested in the energy potential of the lava that spurts from the island’s volcano than in finding tropical amour.
Still, Tully is almost irresistible, even though there is a lot of Buffett music and overly extended plotting to get through before he ultimately wins Rachel over.
Before the finale finally happens, the volcano erupts; a group of dead insurance salesmen go into a tap-dance number; Tammy finds true love and wedded bliss with the good-hearted but dim-witted Margaritaville bartender Brick (Erik Petersen); Tully, through a chance meeting with a talent agent, becomes a star of the music world; and Rachel is well on her way to becoming another Madame Curie.
And oh yes, as if the happy Tully-Rachel and Tammy-Brick pairings weren’t enough to lift our spirits, the hotel’s elderly barfly and one-time man-of-the-world J.D. (Don Sparks), who’s writing his memoirs on the bar’s napkins, and the Caribbean-accented hotel owner Marley (Rema Webb) hook up.
All of this puts on view lots of clever scenic design by Walt Spangler and appropriate costuming by Paul Tazewell amplifying a script that tries to make a few serious points. Tammy finally breaks up with Chad when he insults her with the “F” word – “fat.”
For the most part, however, the book by Greg Garcia and Mike O’Malley is overstuffed with limp laugh lines and out-and-out supposed jokes. Tammy is a fan of puns and doesn’t mind regaling us with them.
On the other hand, while the Buffett music is filling the stage with such lively numbers as ‘It’s Five O-Clock Somewhere’ or ‘License to Chill’, the show projects a carefree spirit that’s often infectious, even with the abundance of familiar hip-and-shoulder-twisting choreography by Kelly Devine.
As Tully, Nolan makes an engaging and surprisingly clean-cut beach-bum. While often strumming a guitar, he impressively handles a big share of the show’s vocals. There’s also strong singing from Luff as Rachel, although the character’s shifts from scientist-seriousness to romantic swoon are difficult to make convincing.
Howard’s Tammy gamely handles her comedy chores and also sings up a storm in her big numbers, including ‘Cheeseburger in Paradise’, where she gets flown Peter Pan-like over the stage. Joining handily with Howard in duets, Petersen’s Brick is an affable oaf, who also gets to show off his terpsichorean skill when he joins the insurance salesmen in that aforementioned tap routine.
The problem is that as we wend our way through all the plot there’s almost too much of everything. Escape to Margaritaville may well indeed be a hearty feast for Buffet fans, but others may well welcome those beach balls letting you know that things are ending, even if one of them hits you in the head.
Ron Cohen
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