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The New York Musical Theatre Festival 2015 The rock opera has long been typified by sprawling dramatic excesses, frequently imported from London, set against music of ear-violating volume and irritating catchiness. Perhaps the prototypic1 example is Jesus Christ Superstar, but there are plenty of others, and for all intents and purposes, the foremost titles of the so-called "British invasion" of the 1980s and 1990s (Cats, Les Misérables, The Phantom of the Opera, Miss Saigon) may be similarly classified. Love or hate such shows, however, most of them justified themselves by taking already oversize ideas and making them extravagant, and injecting (imposing?) seriousness almost to a fault. It's unclear, then, why Elizabeth Searle and Michael Teoli have chosen to title their show at the New York Musical Theatre Festival Tonya & Nancy: The Rock Opera. Because everything after the colon simply does not apply. Does rock music constitute a majority of the score? Sure. But there's also blues, country, and mediocre, non-specific Broadway tucked in there, too. The whole thing isn't through-sung. And, most crucially, it shrinks from itself and its topic, settling for a mocking indifference rather than an outsized exploration of what made its title characters, Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan, such emblematic fixtures 21 years ago. But for anything like this to work as a rock opera, Searle (concept, book, and lyrics) and Teoli (music and lyrics) would need to go just that route. A program note from Searle suggests that she intended this as a critique of the American do-anything-to-win ethos, which would be compelling fodder (and was, at least as theorized, with Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus's sort-of classic of the genre, Chess), but there's no way for it to work unless it's go-for-broke huge in substance as well as style. And Tonya & Nancy, sadly, is not. You can't expect to learn anything new about the competitors on the 1994 Winter Olympics skating team, who were catapulted into the headlines when, apparently at Harding's urging, Kerrigan's knee was bashed in before the planes left for Lillehammer. What we get instead is a dullish biography, with a Tonya (Tracy McDowell) who's pure trailer trash, a Nancy (Jenna Leigh Green) who's nothing more than a self-flagellating perfectionist, and no additional room for nuance to breathe. Though Kerrigan receives the more sympathetic treatment, Tonya seems to interest the writers more. Though we encounter their mothers, Tonya's a foul-tempered insult generator and Nancy's kind and supportive (Liz McCartney plays both), Nancy remains a drowsy cipher as Tonya's boyfriend-husband, Jeff Gillooly (Tony LePage), Star Trek–worshipping bodyguard (Andrew Aaron Berlin), and clubber Shane (Dwayne Washington) consume scene after scene. This imbalances the whole evening, and the cartoonish depictions of everyone in Tonya's circle keeps kicking the whole thing ever closer to the most unbearable, unfunny corner of camp. (Think Carrie without the stunning music or powerful underlying themes—all "Out for Blood," all the time.) The score's only number of note is "This Is It," for the two moms (one a blabby belter, the other sweetly legit), which McCartney, cleverly dual-costumed by Vanessa Leuck, puts across with a confidence that makes the moment seem far more innovative and necessary than it actually is. (It should be noted that the song lacks most of the bite of its most famous forebear, and apparent model, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue's "Duet for One.") The rest is a jumble, with Teoli turning out some mildly appealing tunes, but nothing gaining traction. When the songs aren't generic, which almost everything for the leads is, they're covering ground we don't need to explore (the bodyguard's Star Trek song, Jeff probing the soul we never see him have, Kerrigan's paean to her "Million-Dollar Knee"). Director David Alpert's staging depends on a collection of wheeled towers (Starlet Jacobs is the designer), à la Chess and Dreamgirls, that would keep the action fluid if there were any, and he has done little to tamp down the actors' caricaturish portrayals. McCartney is a thorough kick even as Tonya's one-dimensional mother, but no one else quite matches her. Green is appealing, if coming across as less driven than Nancy probably should, but she sings so shrilly it almost doesn't matter; McDowell's voice is a better match for Tonya, but she finds no heart or believability within the role. Everyone else gets a moment or two to shine (LePage's high wailing in the courtroom is impressive), but it's not enough to cohere. Yes, big ideas, big emotions, and big singing are necessary features of rock operas, but they're also crucial to meet the basic minimum threshold of a satisfying musical. Tonya & Nancy is kneecapped well before it even gets there.
Tonya & Nancy: The Rock Opera
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