What if you could live forever . . . but so could your worst enemy? This is the premise of the cult classic film Death Becomes Her, which has recently been adapted for Broadway! The 1992 black comedy film, starring Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn, is celebrated for its high camp and ridiculous violence as the two ruthless rivals wreak havoc on each other’s immortal bodies as they fight over the same man. The new musical adapts the story for both the stage and the twenty-first century. I got the chance to see it in previews at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre earlier this month and was absolutely delighted! The show officially opens this Thursday, November 21.
The musical stars Megan Hilty and Jennifer Simard as ferocious frenemies Madeline Ashton and Helen Sharp, along with Michelle Williams—of Destiny’s Child fame—as the sultry sorceress Viola Van Horn. Viola kicks off the show with an opening number about her magical potion that promises physical perfection: eternal youth and beauty in a world where women especially are judged for signs of aging. When we first see Madeline, she’s at the top of her game as a Broadway star. Helen, the friend always in her shadow, has finally found love and brought her new fiancé, Dr. Ernest Menville, to meet Madeline. Of course, Madeline can never just let her friend be happy. She easily steals Ernest away and marries him herself, sending Helen into a mental health spiral that lands her in an asylum. The real trouble begins quite a few years later, when Madeline’s acting career has washed up and Helen makes a dramatic reappearance as a glamorous and successful author. Goaded by her jealousy of Helen and despair over her aging body, Madeleine follows the instructions on a mysterious card slipped to her by a waiter and finds herself at the lair of Viola Van Horn. When Viola presents her with a potion for eternal youth, Madeline jumps at the opportunity, barely listening to the warning that comes with it. When she returns home to find Helen trying to run away with her husband, the two women have a violent confrontation that ultimately results in deadly injuries to them both—except, neither of them can die. It turns out that Helen has also taken Viola’s potion, but the elixir only provides immortality, not healing. Now staring down eternity in broken and disfigured bodies, Madeline and Helen must put aside their differences to find a solution to their shared predicament.
It should not surprise you that a musical with a title like Death Becomes Her has some very Gothic elements! The most prominent of these is, of course, one of my favorite tropes: the Faustian Bargain. We all know by now that immortality never comes without a price. In this case, both Helen and Madeline ignore the vague but ominous warning that they need to take good care of their newly immortal bodies—because any injuries will be permanent. Though they enter Viola’s bargain with the goal of one-upping each other in the realm of youth and beauty, they completely undermine that possibility when they spend a good portion of the show walking around with their gruesomely iconic injuries: Madeline’s neck is twisted around 180 degrees and Helen has a giant hole through her center from a shotgun blast. Perhaps even worse, though, is the other catch they didn’t see coming: they now must spend eternity with each other. The musical also briefly touches on another common Gothic trope, though without going too deep: madness. Helen is institutionalized after Madeline’s ultimate betrayal of stealing her fiancé finally pushes her over the edge. Her madness manifests as obsessive revenge fantasies, but also as a tendency to sing in a childish voice and prance about. It is hinted that Helen has escaped from the asylum and never truly recovered from her madness—another thing she must live with for eternity. But then again, perhaps only someone mad in some way would take this sort of bargain in the first place.
On the visual side of things, my favorite aspect of this show was the clever costuming! The costume designer Paul Tazewell did an amazing job of using the costumes as an extra layer of communication to the audience. This is most blatant in Madeline’s opening musical number, a song called “For the Gaze,” which on its surface is about how Madeline loves performing for an audience. After multiple mid-dance costume changes, Madeline and her backup dancers eventually transform into the Progress Pride Flag—making sure you absolutely can’t miss the double entendre of “For the Gays,” acknowledging the queer community’s role in making the original film a cult classic. Every time the sorceress Viola Van Horn appears, her costumes are particularly stunning. They manage to give the suggestion of nudity—highlighting her emphasis on bodily perfection—while also sparkling to the high heavens and adding an air of magic. But I was just as impressed by the slightly more subtle costumes for Madeline and Helen at the height of the second act. After the two women convince Madeline’s plastic surgeon husband to help repair their bodies, they seem to have—at least temporarily—resolved the major obstacle to enjoying their immortality. Yet each woman wears a dress that subtly reflects her iconic injury: Helen’s dress has a concentration of dark gems at her center that hint at the shotgun blast, while the design on Madeline’s dress swirls diagonally from her throat and across her chest, suggesting a twisted neck. Thus, the dresses signal that they are not truly healed and will still be carrying the consequences of their violent confrontation forward into their shared eternity.
If you love campy horror comedy with tons of drama and glam, don’t miss Death Becomes Her on Broadway! The show can be enjoyed whether you’re a fan of the original film or brand new to the story. Find tickets on DeathBecomesHer.com or your preferred Broadway ticketing app. Let me know your thoughts on the Broadway show or the original film in the comments. And if you really can’t get enough of this premise, you should also check out the music video for Sabrina Carpenter’s song “Taste.”