“The Queen of Versailles” review: A Broadway musical as empty as the mansion it portrays
- - “The Queen of Versailles” review: A Broadway musical as empty as the mansion it portrays
Dalton RossNovember 9, 2025 at 8:59 PM
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Julieta Cervantes
'The Queen of Versailles' with Kristin Chenoweth
2025 has been the year of Wicked! The movie adaptation, which came out at the tail end of last year, has ignited a full-on Elphaba and Glinda craze that shows no signs of abating. Halloween costumes were everywhere. The Wicked: For Good sequel is ready to dominate the box office upon it's Nov. 21 release date. And the original stage musical, which first hit Broadway 22 years ago, is still playing to packed houses on the Great White Way.
With all this fanfare, never has there been a better time for the two beloved original stars of Wicked, Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth, to make triumphant returns to the stage!
Yet sometimes, timing is not everything. Menzel's Redwood — which featured the actress literally soaring in a harness on stage while singing about climbing a giant tree — never took creative flight during its underwhelming run earlier this year. And now it is Chenoweth's turn to headline a Broadway musical so undeserving of her talents.
That musical is The Queen of Versailles. Opening tonight at the St. James Theatre, the show is an adaption, and continuation of sorts, of the similarly titled and critically acclaimed 2012 documentary on Jackie Siegel (played here by Chenoweth), and her family’s quest to build a massive and opulent home. That quest comes to a screeching halt due to the 2008 recession, as Jackie scrambles to adjust to a new lifestyle while husband David struggles to keep his timeshare empire from crumbling.
Julieta Cervantes
'The Queen of Versailles' with Kristin Chenoweth
Now that tale is told... through song! And the songs are just one of many problems plaguing an identity crisis of a show that doesn’t quite seem to know what it wants to be.
Much like the ill-fated Tammy Faye from last year, Versailles (directed by Michael Arden) toggles between different modus operandi — in this case, campy comedic sendup, surface level social commentary on income inequality, dark family drama, and French historical farce — and does none of them particularly well. The result often feels like tonal whiplash as the production attempts to scratch several itches without truly satisfying any.
The musical (with a book by Lindsey Ferrentino) also somehow manages to pull off the rare feat of feeling like it is speeding through huge life events at way too fast a clip (Jackie's graduation! Jackie's first wedding! Jackie's first baby! Jackie's next wedding! Jackie's half-completed mansion!), while simultaneously also feeling like the show as a whole is moving painfully slow.
This seemingly unexplainable space-time-continuum confusion is also tied into the characters themselves. Jackie's niece Jonquil (played with spunk and spirit by Tatum Grace Hopkins) shows up to live with the family after her own mom overdoses, and immediately takes offense when Jackie's daughter Victoria (Nina White) asks trivial questions about hair dye and concerts, yet then literally seconds later is singing giddily about the joys of owning a Juicy track suit and Motorola Razr phone — slow-burn transition be damned.
Daughter Victoria is at least given a more earned and gradual arc as a character certainly enjoying some of the traps of seemingly unlimited wealth yet also struggling with pressures from her mother and others to look the part — especially when looking the part means dropping a few pounds.
Unfortunately, Victoria is saddled with some of the lamest tunes of all, including an ode to a deceased pet ("Pavane for a Dead Lizard") and perhaps the most superficial song ever about superficiality with the no-duh anthem "Pretty Wins." Although bonus points, I suppose, for rhyming "lower lip augmentation" with "vaginal rejuvenation."
The songs packing so little punch throughout, and ranging from merely generic and forgettable to slightly embarrassing ("Keep on Thrustin'"), might be the biggest shock of all — seeing as how the music and lyrics come from yet another acclaimed Wicked vet: Stephen Schwartz (also the man behind such beloved titles as Godspell and Pippin).
Who would have thought a reunion between one of Broadway's most cherished voices and the man who gave her some of her most popular material could produce such underwhelming results?
As much work as the play does early on to explain Jackie's preoccupation with wealth, the character still feels underdrawn, never really delving into her failures as a mother beyond trying to get her daughter to lose weight. Nor is Jackie's sudden obsession with fame and being on camera ever truly explored beyond a simple throwaway line about building her "brand."
Julieta Cervantes
'The Queen of Versailles' with Kristin Chenoweth
If the mission of the show was to rip away the façade of a woman clearly driven by appearances, that mission is certainly not accomplished. (I will note that costume designer Christian Cowan certainly understood his mission to display the star in a series of fabulously ridiculous outfits involving oversized pink feather sleeves and an assortment of sequined mini-skirts and heels. A+ work there on all fronts.)
Playing Jackie's husband David, F. Murray Abraham is something of a non-factor. The magnate character is introduced in fine, fun fashion — courtesy of a western-themed explainer song ("The Ballad of the Timeshare King") — but then mostly retreats into his office once the financial trap door opens, occasionally emerging to grumble about his fading empire and the cost of electricity. The actor was given more to work with playing mute early this year at the Irish Repertory Theatre in Beckett’s "Krapp's Last Tape."
In a world in which much of Broadway is opting for minimalist stage design — for either creative or budgetary reasons — Versailles, like its subject, spares no expense. Dane Laffrey's sets feel appropriately busy during the construction phase of the show, with ladders, buckets, and other equipment strewn about the stage. And the final set piece (no spoilers) is truly a marvel to behold.
Emilio Madrid
'The Queen of Versailles' stars Kristin Chenoweth and F. Murray Abraham
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Unfortunately, at the middle of all that well-designed chaos is the same visual crutch that has popped up in so many Broadway shows of late — a gigantic video screen. It makes no matter that the documentary angle lends credibility to the screen as narrative device. The same could be said of Network. Or Good Night, and Good Luck. Or Sunset Blvd. Or The Picture of Dorian Gray. Or plenty of others who have gone that route. Just because you have an excuse to do it doesn’t mean you should.
Even with all its flaws, there is one brief moment, right near the end, where The Queen of Versailles seems on the verge of doing something truly radical.
It’s a situation where Jackie has both won it all yet also lost it all at the same time, and the show seems prepared to end abruptly with its protagonist forced to confront her entire life's mission that has left her at this crossroads. But the moment is fleeting, as the orchestra strikes back up, the sharp edge is dulled, the curtain falls, and audiences are left to ponder how a show so big could also say so little. Grade: C–
on Entertainment Weekly
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
