“MOULIN ROUGE” DAZZLES BUT LACKS COHESION

 The long awaited North American tour of “Moulin Rouge”, winner of 10 Tony’s including Best Musical, has finally arrived at San Diego’s Civic Center just days ago. 

Set in Paris, 1899, Moulin Rouge, the nightclub was famous for the likes of bohemians, aristocrats, artists, the brilliant and starving artist Toulouse-Lautrec, (Jahi Kearsh) various down and outers and street walkers. 

Into this gathering, lovesick and passionate American writer, dreamer Christian (Jay Armstrong Johnson) and star performer of the Moulin Rouge nightclub, Satine (beautifully charming Arianna Rosario) meet, fall in and out of love but are stopped in their tracks by the very wealthy and menacing (read Devil) Duke of Monroth ( Andrew Brewer) who pimps Satine off the highest bidder.

While the story lacks cohesion and it is rough around the edges the overall production to look at is dazzling: The choreography (Sonya Tayeh) phenomenal, sexy tangos, high kicking Can Can Dancers, the entire cast and company are pretty much in constant motion, but the sad love story itself is just choppy and in the end several in the audience were chuckling rather than feelings bit of pathos for the lovers. 

I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t a jukebox musical. Hits from the last  150 years; I recognized one from Nat King Cole, Mama Mia, Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir? Quite a mashup from Adel to Lady Gaga, David Bowie to  Mick Jagger and  Elton John.

With Alex Timbers directing and Justin Levine’s musical Supervision, co orchestration arrangements and additional lyrics, Derek McLane’s scenic design, Catherine Zuber’s costume design, Justin Townsend's  lighting, Peter Hylensky’s sound David Brian Brown and Sarah Cimno’s hair and makeup and based on the 2001 film of the same name, this Moulin Rouge might satisfy some, but sadly, this reviewer was not one of them.

See you at the theatre.

Enjoy.

When: 7 p.m. Tuesdays and Wednesdays; 7:30 p.m. Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sundays. Through July 6.

Where: San Diego Civic Theatre, 1100 Third Ave., Downtown

Tickets: $56.25 and up