By Bart Greenberg***A critic’s dilemma: shows sometimes come along that are tremendous fun but deeply flawed. Does the reviewer approach it as a member of the audience just relaxing and enjoying themselves or with a more critical eye? 
Drag the Musical is a perfect case. It’s raucous, outrageous, campy and fabulous, with the requisite number of over-the-top wigs, costumes and tons of eyelashes. And there’s lots of music: in this case, happily an original score sung live by a talented cast, with an emphasis on belting. There is even a story—actually a bunch of stories to rather overstuff the production. Yet, there were enough misses to hobble an otherwise fine production.
Plot-wise, the audience is told repeatedly that two fabulous drag queens, once lovers, have broke up for reasons no one knows. Each has established her own club across the street from the other. Kitty Galloway (Alaska Thunderfuck) runs The Cat House, a high-class joint that has trouble drawing an audience and is in danger of being forced out by a realtor buying up 
properties and turning them into expensive condos. Alexis Gilmore (Nick Adams—the most muscular drag queen you’ve ever seen) presides over the Fish Tank, an establishment that has a larger following but major financial issues due to the proprietess’s financial ineptitude and a large debt to the IRS. (Both the IRS agent and the realtor are played by a pint-sized scene-stealing belter named J. Elaine Marcos who recalls Nancy Walker in her heyday.)
Alexis turns to her estranged brother Tom (New Kids on the Block’s Joey McIntyre), a widower with a young son (Remi Tuckman —who shares the role with Yair Keydar). This is the serious part of the show, which doesn’t totally mesh with the rest, but works better than might be expected. Tom starts trying to sort out his brother’s books while slowly falling for a female drag queen, Dixie (Liisi LaFortaine). Meanwhile ,the performers at the Fish Tank adopt the boy as a kind of 
mascot. McIntyre and LaFortaine prove to be fine singers and sincere actors who help make Drag the Musical work.
Thunderfuck gets to be loud, noisy, brash and all those other qualities that have made her a star. Both leads get to show off their considerable talents as singers and dancers, leading their “girls” in a series of flashy numbers well choreographed by Spencer Liff, who also directed. The huge, complex set by Jason Sherwood, built for movement, allows a cornucopia of star entrances and members of the cast to pop out of every corner like the workings of an energetic cuckoo clock. The action even spills over into the front of the audience, where some are seated at tables as “patrons” of the clubs. The costumes by Marco Marco are all you could expect in a drag show and the flexible lighting is by Adam Honore.
The book, music and lyrics are credited to Tomas Costanza, Justin Andrew Honard 
(Thunderfuck’s alternate name) and Ashley Gordon, which gives the show a nice consistency of style, even when it shifts back and forth between the serious scenes of family trauma and the far more campy moments surrounding it.
So, where do things go wrong? First and foremost, is the disastrous sound design by Drew Levy. As soon as the music starts, the vocals become muddy 80% of the time; a few of the quieter solos are partially exempt. The five-member band, all of them on electronic instruments, are so over-amped that they drown out the vocalists, rendering the lyrics unrecognizable. What few can be gleaned are not exactly the height of wit, but it would be nice to know what they are saying, especially since some of these words are tied tied to the plot.
Another disappointment is the dramatic denouement the entire evening leads up to—what caused Alexis and Kitty to break up in the first place. There’s absolutely no resolution at all—just grossly ineffectual play writing.
Conclusion: if you are just looking for a noisy and raucous good time, go and see Drag the Musical. But be prepared to be disappointed. The show suffers from it problems and so is not as good as it could potentially be.
Drag the Musical plays at the New World Stages, 340 W. 50th St., NYC. Tickets can be purchased at Telecharge.com or via the show’s website dragthemusical.com
Photos by Matthew Murphy
