Moulin Rouge is deafening, heartless camp. I don't think I've disliked a show this much since Xanadu. That show was dreadful, yet it ran. I expect Moulin Rouge might do as well. People in the balcony were screaming their heads off and cheering at each bit of inanity. I found the book camp and cliche'd with no sense of period or honesty. The direction had no feeling of another time and place: Aaron Tveit's American character was no different than than the tall black actor playing Toulouse-Lautrec or the rest of the Parisians. They all seemed to be in the same American sitcom playing dress up.
There was a lot of overly busy pop choreography, and a clear fortune was spent on scenery, special effects, and rather ugly costumes. Much of the opening, with Danny Burstein doing Cabaret's M.C., reminded me of "Big Spender" and the Roundabout's tawdry version of Cabaret. In the second act, when the Duke dresses up the whore for a day on the Champs Elysees, I was reminded of the "Ascot Gavotte," all musicals I would have preferred to be seeing.
Funniest moment? The end where the whore dying of consumption is bellowing a duet at the top of her lungs before she expires. Anna Russell was funnier 60 years ago when she did the same nonsense in her opera parody, "Anemia's Death Scene." I can't tell if Moulin Rouge hopes you will take the moment seriously or doesn't really give a damn.
