Musical Mondays: Escape to Margaritaville
Yesterday was the Tony Awards and major congratulations to all of the winners. Out of all of the new musicals to open on Broadway for the 2017-18 season only two did not receive at least one nomination: Prince of Broadway and Escape to Margaritaville.
Prince of Broadway tells the story of Harold S. Prince, the 21-time Tony winner, and features music from some of the most iconic Broadway shows including Fiddler on the Roof, Cabaret, and Damn Yankees. I did not see the show, and I cannot comment on how it was. Reviews of the show suggested it was little more than a revue, and even if the revue is of some really great songs, no one seemed to praise the show in its entirety. David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter summed up the show by saying "[u]ltimately, Prince of Broadway is a bit like getting pulled into the YouTube vortex of vintage musical clips, providing a pleasurable reminder of great theater experiences." Maybe it was this lack of narrative strength that led it to no nominations; I'm not sure. It doesn't take away from Mr. Prince's career.
The other show with no nominations was Escape to Margaritaville, a show I decided to see Saturday—the night before the Tony Awards. Before I dive into the show, I will be candid. I do not like the music of Jimmy Buffett. I do not know the gentleman and cannot speak to him as an individual, but I really, really do not care for his music. I do not like the way he leverages his music into nothing more than various corporate opportunities—I hate Margaritaville as a restaurant in practice and concept. The concept of living a laidback island lifestyle is something I avidly support. Drinking, laughing, and enjoying camaraderie with those you love is also one of my favorite activities. Mr. Buffett takes the admirable qualities of relaxation and recreation over work and filters it through a lens that makes it most appreciated by middle aged white men wearing ill-fitting Hawaiian shirts and cargo shorts while taking up too much space in both fact and essence.
This is perhaps best illuminated in the incredibly cool, wild story of Mr. Buffett's airplane being shot at by Jamaican police who had mistaken it for a drug smuggling airplane. That's insane and could be the inspiration for something awesome. Mr. Buffet turned it into a song called Jamaica Mistaica. It made me a little ill to check that to make sure it was spelled correctly. The song is worse than the rhyme. There is some rich gentleman who is retired in Kingston that is wearing the Cargo shorts, flip flops, and Croakies on Oakley sunglasses who listens to this song regularly. I hate that guy too.
The first act of Escape to Margaritaville was…actually weirdly fun? Not in the play itself, which felt like a sitcom on stage with unnecessarily bright colors and simple characters. But rather what was fun was hearing all of the drunk people around me singing songs and cheersing their glasses together in during the show. In fact, it was such a focus of the evening and what made the first act so palatable, it was more of an experience than a musical. The show itself initially seemed fine. It wasn’t good, and the actors (some pretty accomplished performers) tried to do the most with what they were given. Sometimes bordering on campy, bad fun, the first act was at best inoffensive and at worst not memorable. Then it ended with a volcano explosion and the wheels came off.
The second act starts with Jimmy Buffet’s Volcano, which after an intermission of increased drinking had the audience more drunkenly scream-singing than actually trying to hit the melody anymore. The plot completely forgets the island as our main characters go to the Midwest to chase their tourist loves. In fact, the second act was as appealing as a vacation to Cincinnati in winter. The Cheeseburger in Paradise number in a better show would be a super fun, cheesy big number in the second act. Following what nonsense came before it, it was an absolute lowlight. This didn’t stop the majority of the audience from screaming the lyrics. Loudly, poorly, drunkenly.
Seeing Escape to Margaritaville was, in fact, like a night when you don’t want to go out to drink and yet somehow find yourself at a very tacky Mexican restaurant. At first you accept it definitely isn’t “good”, but you’re drinking a margarita and accepting it is what it is. You start having a few more drinks, and more, and more. By the end your head hurts and you aren’t entirely sure why you did what you did.