Xanadu! A place where nobody dared to go!

"No, you CAN'T play the President of the Universe in our new movie....."

"Why not?"

"You were so believable as that Xanadu guy, we can't see you doing anything better"

I was six years old when I saw Xanadu in the theatre.....

I was 8 or 9, and had no idea in hell what this was. Later being older, saw it again, wondered if it was a failed Fellini with sparkles.

The defence rests.

http://www.laguitarshow.com/pix/gallery/elo.jpg

ah, youth.

They'll sue you you
From Xanadu-u-u

http://www.awfulplasticsurgery.com/images/bruce_jenner3.jpg

A PLACE THAT NOBODY DARED TO GO...: ... and that probably nobody should be going back to. Nonetheless, a stage adaptation of the 1980 movie musical Xanadu is, for better of worse, bound for Off-Broadway, rollerskates and all. Christopher Ashley (All Shook Up) will direct what I can only assume will be the most camptacular show to debut in spring 2007. Now then, is it too early to start campaigning for Kylie Minogue to step in for her fellow Aussie Olivia Newton-John in the lead?

I CALLED IT!

I CALLED IT!

ROYALTIES, BITCHEZ!

The musical is a Broadway smash thanks to a good review in the Times! The book is by admired comic playwright Douglas Carter Beane, and it's a cheeky spoof, apparently:

Heaven on Wheels, and in Leg Warmers
By CHARLES ISHERWOOD

Can a musical be simultaneously indefensible and irresistible? Why, yes it can. Witness “Xanadu,” the outlandishly enjoyable stage spoof of the outrageously bad movie from 1980 about a painter and his muse who find love at a roller disco in Los Angeles.

The title doesn’t ring a bell? Let me refresh your memory. In “Xanadu” did Newton-John a blooming film career destroy. (Sorry, Mr. Coleridge, I couldn’t resist.)

You probably remember how Olivia Newton-John, the pert, wholesome pop thrush, rocketed to film stardom opposite John Travolta in the Hollywood version of the musical “Grease.” That was in 1978. A mere two years later she roller-skated into oblivion — or at least back to Australia — in a fabulously insipid turkey called “Xanadu,” which didn’t do much for Gene Kelly’s career, either. “Xanadu” also helped kill the “Grease”-born movie musical revival right quick, and the film now resides, I trust, under toxic lockdown at Netflix shipping centers across the country. Watch it at your peril.

Why, you may wonder, would anyone deem it necessary, or even worthwhile, to pay lavish mock homage to a dreadful movie by exhuming it for exhibition onstage? Has Broadway nothing better to do? Has the American musical theater reached such a nadir of inspiration?

Well, yeah. I guess. Whatever. Why pester me with silly questions when there’s so much silly bliss to be had at the Helen Hayes Theater, where the new, improved “Xanadu” opened last night? In any case, Douglas Carter Beane, the impish playwright who has ingeniously adapted the screenplay for the stage (while wearing a Hazmat suit, I hope), trumps such hectoring queries by acknowledging the inanity of the enterprise himself. In his adorably ditzy new book for the musical, Mr. Beane posits 1980, the year “Xanadu” dawned and the year in which the stage version is set, as a cultural turning point. “The muses are in retreat,” muses the god Zeus, played by Tony Roberts, in the musical’s poignant climax. (Kidding!) “Creativity shall remain stymied for decades. The theater? They’ll just take some stinkeroo movie or some songwriter’s catalog, throw it onstage and call it a show.”

Prophetic words, mighty Zeus, but the creators and performers of “Xanadu” desecrate the theatah with such sharp good humor and magnetic high spirits that you won’t have much time to weep for the cultural blight that too much of Broadway has become. And in fact, there is enough first-rate stage talent rolling around in “Xanadu” to power a season of wholly new, old-school, non-jukebox musicals, if someone would get around to writing a few good ones.

Kerry Butler, as the Greek demi-goddess Clio, who also roams Venice Beach as the Australian mortal Kira, is simply heaven on eight little polyurethane wheels. Or heaven in leg warmers. (Actually she’s both: the skates and woolens are Ms. Newton-John’s memorably ghastly signature look from the movie, though the costume designer David Zinn chose not to drape her in those fetching peasant blouses.)

Ms. Butler is the rare Broadway ingénue who is as funny as she is pretty, and she sings gloriously, too, both in her own tangy Broadway belt and in a devastatingly funny impersonation of Ms. Newton-John’s sweetly sighing soprano. (When Ms. Butler is speaking Australian, she’s actually a ringer for a fresher import from Down Under, Nicole Kidman.) She’s got a lovely line in arabesque on those skates, too! Can Audra McDonald or Kristin Chenoweth do that?

Clio-Kira sheds her inspirational light on a frustrated young would-be artist named Sonny, who spends his time making chalk murals on the sidewalk by the shore. Sonny has chalk for brains, too, and Cheyenne Jackson, the star of “All Shook Up,” the forgettable Elvis jukebox musical, plays him beautifully as a big slab of prime beefcake in tube socks and denim cutoffs. Sonny’s twinkling blue eyes have all the depth of a kiddie pool, his earnest effusions the hilarious aridity of soap-opera acting. (Mr. Jackson is a last-minute and temporary substitute for James Carpinello, star of the forgettable stage ripoff of “Saturday Night Fever,” who was injured in a skating accident and will return to the role when he heals.)

Working from a screenplay consisting of atrocious musical numbers Scotch-taped together with doltish dialogue, Mr. Beane filled the gaps by dreaming up tasty shtick for two of Clio’s wicked sister muses, Calliope and Melpomene, who are played by the stage-devouring comic actresses Jackie Hoffman and Mary Testa, respectively. Their theme song, “Evil Woman,” is a highlight, as Ms. Hoffman, in her cat eyeglasses looking like a Roz Chast cartoon sprung to life, scats the shrieky guitar riffs while Ms. Testa bellows the chorus in chesty tones. Together or separately, they are both criminally funny.

Perhaps you remember “Evil Woman,” a hit for the not-quite- immortal ’70s synth-rock outfit Electric Light Orchestra. (A clue: Sing the first syllable twice.) If you were at least tween-age in 1980 and in possession of a radio, you will probably recognize a big chunk of the pop score for “Xanadu,” which includes the sultry ballad “Magic” and the pulsating title tune, written (like “Evil Woman”) by Jeff Lynne, the songwriter for E.L.O.

Back in the day, these were the kind of songs that you’d scoff at in public but crank up and sing along with in the privacy of your Camaro. Now, thanks to our metastasizing cultural affection for the drek of yesteryear (one day theses will be written about that seminal work “Mamma Mia!”), we are free to celebrate them in collective public rituals, as long as everyone agrees to keep tongues in cheeks.

“Xanadu,” which has mostly been directed at roller-derby speed by Christopher Ashley, does have a few dead spots in its brisk 90-minute running time. In addition to Zeus, Mr. Roberts plays the Gene Kelly role from the movie, a magnate named Danny Maguire who bankrolls Sonny’s disco dreams.

Mr. Roberts possesses a polished deadpan style, but Mr. Beane’s inspiration seems to have failed him when it came to minting fresh fun from the subplot involving flashbacks to Danny’s 1940s romance. The stage “Xanadu” can’t really muster much in the way of an extravaganza, either, despite Dan Knechtges’s mercilessly cheesy choreography and the music director Eric Stern’s zesty pop arrangements. (For those attuned to higher musical planes, yes, he is that Eric Stern.) The production is skimpy on both the casting and design fronts.

A few dozen audience members are seated onstage, but this device, used effectively in “Spring Awakening,” seems less an aesthetic choice than an economic one here. With a cast of just 10 and minimal sets (the designer David Gallo seems to have blown much of the budget on disco balls), “Xanadu” uses these onstage viewers as unpaid extras and space-filling, mildly animated scenery.

I can imagine, though, that members of the movie’s cult following, amateur cultural archaeologists of all things ’80s, would thrill to the prospect of being magically spirited into the swirling center of a beloved period artifact.

“This is like children’s theater for 40-year-old gay people!” cracks Ms. Hoffman’s Calliope at one point, and she (or rather Mr. Beane) is only half-kidding. But that acidic epithet could be used to describe far too many more earnest Broadway duds of recent vintage. At least “Xanadu” is in on the joke. The show’s winking attitude toward its own aesthetic abjectness can be summed up thus: If you can’t beat ’em, slap on some roller skates and join ’em.

XANADU

Book by Douglas Carter Beane; music and lyrics by Jeff Lynne and John Farrar; based on the Universal Pictures film screenplay by Richard Danus and Marc Rubel; directed by Christopher Ashley; choreography by Dan Knechtges; music direction and arrangements by Eric Stern; sets by David Gallo; lighting by Howell Binkley; costumes by David Zinn; sound by T. Richard Fitzgerald and Carl Casella; projection design by Zachary Borovay; technical supervision by Juniper Street Productions; production stage manager, Arturo E. Porazzi; general manager, Laura Heller. Presented by Robert Ahrens, Dan Vickery, Tara Smith/B. Swibel and Sarah Murchison/Dale Smith at the Helen Hayes Theater, 240 West 44th Street, Manhattan; (212) 239-6200. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.

WITH: Kerry Butler (Clio/Kira), Cheyenne Jackson (Sonny), Tony Roberts (Danny Maguire/Zeus), Jackie Hoffman (Calliope/Aphrodite), Mary Testa (Melpomene/Medusa), Curtis Holbrook (Thalia/Siren/Young Danny/’80s Singer/Cyclops), Anika Larsen (Euterpe/Siren/’40s Singer/Thetis), Patti Murin (Erato/Siren/’40s Singer/Eros/Hera), David Tankersley (Featured Skater) and André Ward (Terpsicore/Siren/’80s Singer/Hermes/Centaur).

c 2007 NY Times

yeah a (40-year-old, gay) friend of mine wrote it up too.

broadway is a bore but this movie, my god, the best!

I'd go for free.

Cheyenne Jackson has some great big ol' thighs. Even the critics noticed.

Oh, and between Xanadu and Can't Stop the Music, I pick the former. Both are way better than The Apple tho, imho.

C.J. wears tube socks very well.

x-post -- OUT.

LOL, that's right, you like that one the best don't you? That would have to be the one camp classic I'm not into. Literally the only one.

Also, next time I karaoke, I am SO singing "Suddenly."

A fine choice. :-)

Gorgeous song.

I should also add that, unlike a lot of other DVDs I've reviewed and disliked, I held onto my copy of The Apple. I'm not giving up so easily on that one.

Wise man.

sigh

The real question is: should this particular canon be expanded to include Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and The Wiz?

probably not so much that it would include Thank God It's Friday, tho

CANNON *pow*

I see why you only post those butch photos in WDYLL.

Artist's rendition of Ned and I fighting over The Apple:

http://www.realfightgear.com/images/Gallery/full/4-1119970026.jpg

Wuss.

you and Ned should have a picnic at Susan Sontag's grave.

Loving Xanadu = bad taste(lessness).
Loving screwball = arid, stuffy taste.

I know which side I'm on.

Maybe one reason I love Can't Stop the Music in particular is because it so successfully fucks up screwball conventions and reveals them for the lameness they are.

also Kerry Butler would be the ONJ emulator :).

haha OK it doesn't say on the CD here
the whole thing sounds like it was recorded by some glue-sniffing Muppets that dropped out of jr. high.

this 'Cheyenne Jackson' is no ONJ

in fairness, no-one is.

I saw a clip on of this on Youtube once and they whole time they were being so winky about "can you beliEVE we are doing XANADU??"– just disgusting. OTOH I like Xanadu for what it is, esp. the soundtrack! SO far this thing is making me, I would say, rationally angry.

Ok I know no one can be ONJ but this guy isn't even coming close to being Cliff Richard. I would think that's acheivable.

is cliff richard the andy gibb look-a-like from the movie?

iirc he's not in the movie but he does the vocals on "Suddenly" which plays when they're rollerskating around in the studio.

oh yeah!

love that song. something so charming and innocent about late 70s pop (in retrospect).

I saw the cast do Xanadu at last years Macy's Thanksgiving Parade and I was so mad at their winkyness and they just ruined it. I can't imagine how infuriating the cd must be if that's how they played out the whole show

'Suddenly' is the bomb

I bet the Broadway Xanadu was about the worst thing ever, Cheyenne Jackson's legs aside. (Admittedly, probably the sole reason 80 percent of the audience was coming.)

Just downloaded Xanadu, going to watch for the 1st time in many years, i hope i don't regret it because of this thread.

You will not regret it.

I think my dog died the same day as I watched it and I still don't regret it.

Nevermind – he died two days before (thanks ILX for datestamping these two major life events).

I was going to complain about the Broadway show, but apparently I already did that upthread. It really made me want to break things.

Abbott, I hope you can forgive Cheyenne Jackson by the time you get to the 30 Rock episodes where he's a regular.

Ok, I did a GIS for that guy and I like him on 30 Rock (I like everyone on 30 Rock). IMO he was the least offensive guy in the cast recoding, that or the guy presumably playing the Gene Kelly role.

Any track with muses getting all sassy (all those extra ELO songs I assume just padded out the show) were the worst, followed in badness by the fake-ONJ lady, whose voice I just didn't like. Everything else was acceptable. In fact maybe "Dancin'" was my favorite song in the cast recording, where it's my least favorite on the movie soundtrack.

It is a pretty fucking incredible/bonkers scene in the movie, tho.

unexpectedly helpful

Long-haired lead singer guy to alien beings: 'I've never heard computerized music before!'
Olivia Newton-John in the year 1970: 'ME NEITHER! WHAT'S IT LIKE!'

http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/toomorrow_sci-fi_rock_film_starring_olivia_newton-john_1970_/

have you seen this?

Agony Booth did a full rundown of this the other year, sounds mindboggling:

http://www.agonybooth.com/recaps/Toomorrow_1970.aspx

just the 9 minute clip at the end of that post

it doesn't all take place in orbit, apparently, but the production values / visual design of the alien ship's control room are shockingly high for something I've never heard of

the dialog is even worse than the most mindless Sid and Marty Krofft show -- this looks like it's definitely worth knowing about

xpost ok that review has me wanting to leave work early

Vic (Vic Cooper). Pent-up British keyboard player. His homemade synthesizer’s wild beat may contain the key to universal happiness.

i'm down for discovering the key to universal happiness.

Now here's a TV promo appearance I hadn't heard of/seen before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Hcd02rr-1I

Movie turns 35 today...

40th anniversary live 24-hour radio celebration commences at the top of the hour.

https://oddlystupid.wixsite.com/xanadu

https://wfmu.org/2020/07/31/xanadu-unofficial-40th-anniversary-marathon/

Well that'll do it.

Oh my bad... this is NEXT weekend. So you can clear your schedules, if any.

you and Ned should have a picnic at Susan Sontag's grave.

― Dr Morbius, Friday, July 13, 2007 2:42 PM (fifteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

god this movie is right up my alley. imagine following up your lead turn in The Warriors to rollerskating with Olivia Newton John.