This Broadway show is an unfortunate mishmash of Buffett staples like "Why Don't We Get Drunk" and "Margaritaville" and a handful of tepid new compositions
Of all the musicians whose work might cry out for a razzle-dazzle jukebox musical, Jimmy Buffett — he of the languid odes to umbrella drinks and beach vacations — would seem to be at the bottom of the list.
Then again, good sense never stopped anyone, least of all Broadway producers and/or past-their-prime pop stars. So here we have “Escape to Margaritaville,” an unfortunate mishmash of Buffett staples like “Why Don’t We Get Drunk” and “Margaritaville” and a handful of tepid new compositions, set alternately in a downtrodden Caribbean resort and Cincinnati (don’t ask).
The show’s idea of nuance is to have a Hispanic character named Jesus repeatedly referred to as Jesus (as in Christ), all as an elaborate set-up for the characters to break out into Buffett’s 1975 song “My Head Hurts, My Feet Stink and I Don’t Love Jesus.” As for the 1978 Buffett anthem “Cheeseburger in Paradise,” I could attempt to explain how that gets shoehorned into the plot, but you would need to consume a great deal of tequila before it makes any sort of sense.
To be fair, the first act of “Escape to Margaritaville,” directed by Christopher Ashley (“Come from Away”), flirts with being ecstatically terrible — a garishly-colored explosion of randomness and kitsch that you (almost) start to root for. Alas, the second act is merely terrible, as the gears of the inane plot start to grind, and the creators throw anything at the wall to see what sticks. (A hallucinatory tap dance? Sure, why not!)
For what it’s worth, the main actors — Paul Alexander Nolan (terrific in “Bright Star”), Alison Luff, Lisa Howard and Eric Peterson — are all game and do their best to put over the sitcomish story. (Short version: Boys meet girls, boys lose girls, boys fly to Ohio to win girls back.) But the leads are all inexplicably upstaged by two male chorus members, who lurk in the background of various scenes, acting out a wordless romantic melodrama in which they appear to fall in love, explore the possibilities of an open relationship, repeatedly bicker and then make-up.
This pantomime might be distracting, if there were anything worth distracting from, so instead it’s more of a weird exclamation point on a run-on sentence of a musical.
Escape to Margaritaville
Marquis Theatre, 210 West 46th Street, New York
Tickets: $ 59-$ 169; available online at www.ticketmaster.com. On sale through Nov. 18.
Christopher Kelly may be reached at ckelly@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @chriskelly74. Find NJ.com/Entertainment on Facebook.