The NY Times Post Review: Priscilla Queen of the Desert

With Song in Heart, Pompoms on Head

Every conceivable surface has been decked with sequins, spattered with colored lights, plastered in mirrored chips or trimmed in feathers and fringe in “Priscilla Queen of the Desert,” the new musical that shimmied open Sunday night at the Palace Theater. Probably a few inconceivable surfaces have been accessorized with equally exotic detail, but I hesitate to inquire.

Adapted from the 1994 movie about three Australian drag queens on an epic road trip through the outback, this hyperactively splashy show wants so desperately to give audiences a gaudy good time that the results are oddly enervating. Instead of ecstatic high-midnight, when the dance floor is packed and the energy in the room hits a peak, Broadway’s newest karaoke-inspired musical more regularly evokes the later, more dispiriting hours at a nightclub, when the D.J. is on autopilot and only the really hardened club crawlers are still churning away.

Read the full New York Times Post Review

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