Never having seen Michael John LaChiusa's version, I won't join the fierce debate over the relative merits of the two musicals. But in New Rep artistic director Rick Lombardo's glamorously decadent staging, Lippa's show packs the smooth, deadly punch of a shot of absinthe.
Janie E. Howland's terrific set establishes the mood from the opening scene. Funhouse mirrors gleam on the back wall of exposed brick; a larger rectangle to the side slyly morphs into a poster first of Queenie, then of Burrs, as we meet this bawdy, brawling pair. It only gets better -- darker, meaner, tawdrier -- as night falls and the temperature rises in their seedy flat. Electric candles slither down on wires, a rumpled brass bed slides seductively into place as needed, an ancient Victrola hisses and blares, and even the apartment's filthy, depressing bathroom is evoked in dingy detail.
This makes it easy for Lombardo to have a couple of key moments take place with one or another character ensconced on the toilet. And whether you love or hate that idea will give you a good sense of whether this is the musical for you.
For certain, it's a directorial touch very much in the spirit of the piece. Both March's poem and Lippa's setting of it (which blends jazz with more anachronistic idioms in a pulsing, intoxicating blur) are truly decadent -- not in the debased chocolate-dessert sense that gets bandied about these days, but with the reek of true and troubling decay that lies at the word's root. Queenie's a hard, mean dame, Burrs is a brutish lout, and neither one of them gets much in the way of redemption as the night wears on.
