Theatre in Review: Death Becomes Her (Lunt-Fontanne Theatre)How do you like your comic divas? Death Becomes Her offers you quite a choice, which I bet you'll be hard-pressed to make. First up is Megan HiltyMe! Me! Me! and running amok in the production number "For the Gaze." You'll recognize the pun that the songwriters Julia Mattison and Noel Carey have embedded in that title when I mention the skimpily dressed chorus boys and rainbow-colored lighting, not to mention Madeline leaping through a series of costume changes that include appearing as Liza Minnelli in Halston drag and Dorothy Gale, complete with Toto. A star of stage, screen, and boudoir, Madeline is always, always "on." Regarding the audience's reaction to her performance, she admits, "I threw a little extra sparkle to the mezzanine. Not their fault they're from Ohio." A two-time Oscar nominee, as she can't help reminding everyone, she is nevertheless a total professional: "When I'm working, I'm on a pretty strict regimen -- dance classes, salads with no dressing, cocaine." Later, when her career hits the skids -- her last epic, Dogstronaut is ten years in the rear-view mirror, which, she notes, is seventy dog years -- she trudges hilariously through a skin cream infomercial only to discover that she is the "before" example, with a gorgeous young thing as the "after." She frames every emotion in screenplay terms: "Close up: Madeline --conflicted!," she announces, stealing the spotlight once again. The role is a marathon but Hilty makes it look like a holiday; this is a career peak for this triple threat. As Madeline's chief frenemy, Helen Sharp, Jennifer Simard displays her knack for making clinical depression inexplicably hilarious. An ex-actress (her career blindsided by Madeline) with no husband (Madeline stole him), she is a pinprick applied to the bloated egos surrounding her, delivering killing assessments in a quiet deadpan that Dorothy Parker might envy. "I love Mad," she insists. "Love her like a twin. Who stole my nutrients in the womb." Catching up with Ernest, her ex, now Madeline's husband, a plastic surgeon whose humanitarian work has been redirected to the sagging flesh of Rodeo Drive, she murmurs, "She's stolen your pride, your passion. You used to help poor, starving children. Now you help rich women look like poor starving children." Whether confined to a madhouse raving about Madeline's malign influence or reinventing herself as a Jackie Collins-style novelist -- making an entrance in a sensational lady-in-red outfit with a plunging decolletage -- Simard is every bit the comic adversary that Death Becomes Her needs. It's great to see her, a best-kept secret for many years, step up to the star role she so richly deserves. As probably you know from the film, both Madeline and Helen make a satanic deal with the enigmatic Viola Van Horn, who sells them a youth potion that, too late, they realize renders them functionally dead, their bodies prone to decay if mistreated. This only becomes apparent after a violent brawl that sees Madeline thrown down a staircase and Helen with a pizza-sized hole in her torso. This is the musical's problematic turning point: What begins as amusingly malicious sketch comedy drifts into Road Runner territory, becoming more outrageously cartooned by the minute, and the fun slips away. Even Tim Clothier's illusions, including a beheading that doesn't stop Madeline from complaining, come off as more strenuous than funny. Marco Pennette's zinger-filled book gets its laughs but struggles to tell a satisfying story; after a while, the laughs come less and less frequently. An enormous effort by A-list talent, led by director/choreographer Christopher Gattelli, has gone into making a deluxe entertainment out of Death Becomes Her. Still, one wonders: Might the material have been better served by a scrappier, less luxurious approach? (I'd love to know what Off Broadway's Marla Mindelle might have done with it.) The production's design is loaded with witty touches: Derek McLane's scenery includes Viola's chateau, which looks like a Gothic crypt, and Madeline's mansion, with its sweeping staircase and vista of palm trees. Paul Tazewell's costumes -- aided by Charles LaPointe's hair and wig designs and Joe Dulude II's makeup -- put the leading ladies through a series of astonishing transitions. (I especially love Madeline's leopard print lounging outfit, a perfect match for the furniture in her Manhattan penthouse.) Justin Townsend's contribution includes a glittering proscenium and some stunning jewel lighting effects on the leading ladies in their big numbers. Peter Hylenski, pivoting from the delicately jazzy Maybe Happy Ending, creates the big, punchy sound this show needs without sacrificing intelligibility. But all this supersized creativity draws out the action, threatening to overwhelm the show's simple premise. The supporting cast mostly dwells in the shadows cast by Madeline and Helen. Christopher Sieber is the nerd of nerds as Ernest, the ladies' favorite punching bag, but the role is eminently thankless and his big solo, "The Plan," is among the score's weakest offerings. As Viola, Michelle Williams is the best possible advertisement for a youth serum but she lacks a certain mystery and menace. Taurean Everett who must live at the gym, makes an impression with each new appearance as Viola's assistant. Josh Lamon, rolled up in muumuus and wraps, gets all his laughs as Madeline's long-suffering personal assistant. It's worth noting that Robert Zemeckis' film, the source material, is forty-five minutes shorter than the musical, and even then it stretches its central -- really, it's only -- joke too thinly. With a basically static situation and characters who cannot change, Death Becomes Her outstays its welcome, exhaustingly trying to top itself with fresh outrageousness. To be sure, it is currently doing abundant business, and, at the performance I attended, the audience hooted in glee right up to the cemetery finale. Really, though, the title is incorrect; death leaves these formidable talents stuck in place. Still, Hilty and Simard are superhuman in pursuit of their laughs.--David Barbour 
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