The musical Tammy Faye, centering on the larger-than-life televangelist Tammy Faye Baker, came to Broadway from London with high hopes. It had a sell-out engagement at the Almeida Theater, music by pop legend Elton John, an Olivier Award-winning performance by Katie Brayben in the title role, and it was the first production in the renovated and elevated Palace Theater. But the New York run has already posted its closing notice for Dec. 8, with a total of only 24 previews and 29 regular performances and at a loss of $25 million. So what went wrong?
The biggest flaw is found in James Graham’s book and Rupert Goold’s direction, both uneven. The show can’t make up its mind what it wants to be. Is it a goofy satire on American excess and obsession with TV or a heartfelt love letter to Tammy, portraying her as a compassionate supporter of the gay community during the AIDS crisis, a pioneering feminist in a male-dominated field, and an innocent bystander during the massive corruption and embezzlement committed by her husband and co-star Jim Bakker in their joint venture, the PTL (Praise the Lord) satellite TV network?
The schizophrenic nature of Graham’s book is exemplified in its treatment of gay characters. There is a genuinely touching recreation of Tammy’s 1985 sympathetic interview with Steve Pieters (a moving Charl Brown), a gay pastor living with HIV, though in reality the encounter was held via satellite and Tammy did not actually hug Pieters as depicted in the show. Yet Graham also includes gratuitous gay stereotypes for cheap laughs (swishy musical theater actors playing Biblical figures in the Bakkers’ theme-park productions) and only lightly touches on Jim Bakker’s bisexuality. Occasionally the satire is pointed and piercing, but then the humor level falls through the floor, as in a juxtaposition of “Hustler” publisher Larry Flynt with Colonel Sanders, appearing on the PTL talk show. (Both were overly fond of chicken, get it?)
The score with catchy Broadway-pop-mixed music by John and serviceable lyrics by Jake Shears of Scissor Sisters, fills the bill to advance the story and comment on character, but rarely rises above generic. Tammy’s big Act Two opener, “In My Prime Time,” is a rousing “I want” song which brings the energy way up.
Goold’s direction emphasizes the broad comedy over honest examination of the influence of media on religion. Bunny Christie’s candy-colored set further tips the proceedings into parody, featuring a giant board of TV screens, doubling as cubicles for actors to pop out of, like the infamous joke wall on the old “Laugh-In” series and the neon tic-tac-toe set for the “Hollywood Squares” game show. Katrina Lindsay’s costume capture the time period (1970s-1990s) with wit.
The British probably ate this sort of America-bashing up, but US audiences, reeling from the Trump re-election and re-emergence of the ultra-right-wing figures lampooned here, evidently don’t have a taste for such self-examination. Thus the transatlantic failure.
The show’s short run is really a shame because the cast is given its level best (though at times during Lynn Page’s furiously choreographed numbers, we can see them sweat). Brayden displays admirable pipes and endows Tammy with spunk, wit, and compassion. Though Graham’s version of Tammy is not as complex or nuanced as the one which won Jessica Chastain an Oscar in Michael Showalter’s 2021 feature “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” (I didn’t see Bernadette Peters in the 1990 TV-Movie “Fall from Grace.”) Tammy is not the total innocent who used the PTL money to buy the “occasional nice thing.” But the script’s shortcomings aren’t Brayden’s fault. She takes the material given her and creates as solid and relatable a character as possible.
Christian Borle skillfully recreates Jim Bakker’s awkwardness in front of the camera (as opposed to Tammy’s ease) and his manic lack of control as PTL’s empire grows. He does his best to combine the the zany, comic aspects of his songs with a creditable characterization.
Michael Cerveris captures rival televangelist Jerry Falwell’s sanctimonious sneer and barely concealed lust for power, encapsulated in the ironically titled “Satellite of God.” Max Gordon Moore, Mark Evans, Ian Lassiter, and Andy Taylor have fun with multiple cartoonish roles ranging from Ronald Reagan to Pope John Paul II to Ted Turner.
Tammy Faye is not among the most abysmal of Broadway flops such as Marilyn, In My Life or The Story of My Life. It has some redeeming elements such as Brayden’s performance and the sharper edges of its satire. It just couldn’t find the right balance and opened at the wrong moment.
