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<\/p>\nNew Go-Gos Musical \u2018Head Over Heels\u2019 Is a Goddamn Queer Delight: REVIEW<\/b>
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A bride\u2019s cockamamy paternity hunt was just crazy enough to make <\/span>Mamma Mia!<\/span><\/i> into a smash, launching a thousand jukebox copycats. Two decades later, The Go-Go\u2019s are taking the opposite tack \u2014 toppling the patriarchy <\/span>Head Over Heels<\/span><\/i> in an queer fantasia of a new musical that opened at Broadway\u2019s Hudson Theatre tonight. <\/span><\/p>\n Consider it an escapist mission for our times, wielding nostalgia and camp as its weapons of choice. The result is openly bizarre, no doubt. It\u2019s also an infectiously entertaining, french-tipped fist pump for the resistance. <\/span><\/p>\n Oh, yeahhh! And they got the beat.<\/span><\/p>\n Not that there\u2019s anything overtly political about the frothy Elizabethan rom-com on which the story is based (Sir Philip Sidney\u2019s <\/span>The Arcadia<\/span><\/i>) or director Michael Mayer\u2019s vibrant-hued, ingeniously tongue-in-cheek production, whose aesthetic marries amateur summer Shakespeare with retro fantasy flourishes that recall <\/span>She-Ra: Princess of Power<\/span><\/i>. <\/span><\/p>\n But James Magruder and Jeff Whitty (who adapted and conceived the story, respectively) take inspired liberties in retooling this source material to jive anachronistically with the present day, and accommodate The Go-Go\u2019s brand of new wave girl<\/a> pop. With lines like, \u201cWherefore scoffest thou?\u201d and \u201cThou better workest,\u201d we\u2019re not in Sir Philip\u2019s Greco-Roman countryside anymore.<\/span><\/p>\n The oracle who gets this show on the road is non-binary Pythio, played in fab finery by <\/span>Drag Race<\/span><\/i> alum Peppermint (making the Broadway debut she deserves, and history as the first trans<\/a> woman<\/a> to create a principal role). Arcadia is in peril of losing its divine life force (you guessed it, that beat!) for remaining too orderly under \u201cthe iron yoke of tradition\u201d (ugh, men<\/a>). Pythio\u2019s prophecies for the king (zaddy Jeremy Kushnier) and his royal fam include a forbidden love affair, adultery, and regicide. Oh, my!<\/span><\/p>\n In Shakespeare as in Sondheim, the woods are where folks head to figure out who they really are away from the fetters of civilization. So off they go, where mistaken identities, cross-dressing, and sexual awakenings all carouse beneath designer Julian Crouch\u2019s flattened Rococo woodland. <\/span><\/p>\n Who\u2019d have thought The Go-Go\u2019s greatest hits were so well-suited to such Elizabethan hijinks? <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cOur Lips Are Sealed\u201d in secret romance, sing two sets of unlikely lovers: the king\u2019s youngest (Alexandra Socha) and her shepherd suitor (a kooky and ripped Andrew Durand), in Amazon warrior drag; and the eldest princess (Bonnie Milligan, a knockout) and her handmaid turned beloved (Taylor Iman Jones). The latter fleas on \u201cVacation\u201d to Lesbos when the two face their first spat. A furtive liaison set to \u201cHeaven Is a Place on Earth\u201d delivers the most brilliant stagecraft of the night. If not every number pops with distinct flavor, neither do they feel shoehorned, or the story contorted to fit as many tracks as possible. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This is not to say the plot isn\u2019t twisted; a series of sharp turns near the end are enough to cause whiplash. But then, so is dancing to the Go-Go\u2019s if you\u2019re doing it right. Given the show\u2019s unwaveringly open embrace of its own absurdity, faulting it for flaunting logic or convention feels beside the point.<\/span><\/p>\n Playful, expressive choreography from Spencer Liff adds punch and sex<\/a> appeal to a musical that ultimately considers eroticism as primal and gender as performance. When a heroine dons drag in Shakespeare (and it\u2019s always a woman<\/a>\u2019s ruse), resolution depends on casting it off and affirming gender identity as fixed. <\/span>Here, the very notion that gender is anything other than a false disguise gets flipped <\/span>Head Over Heels<\/span><\/i> \u2014 and heaven knows we can dance to that beat.<\/span><\/p>\n Recent theatre features\u2026 Follow Naveen Kumar on Twitter: @Mr_NaveenKumar The post New Go-Gos Musical \u2018Head Over Heels\u2019 Is a Goddamn Queer Delight: REVIEW<\/a> appeared first on Towleroad Gay News<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.towleroad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/HOH1.jpg?resize=480%2C322\")
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<\/a><\/em>(photos: joan marcus)<\/p>\n