Get the latest gossip
‘Tammy Faye’ Review: With Forgettable Elton John Score, Televangelist Broadway Musical Doesn’t Find the Light
This scattershot Broadway musical has a disappointing score and a muddled tone. It’s as messy as Tammy’s mascara.
His approach to preaching induces eye-rolls in the Evangelican patriarchy, led by Jerry Falwell (Michael Cerveris) and including Pat Robertson (Andy Taylor), Jimmy Swaggart (Ian Lassiter) and Marvin Gorman (Max Gordon Moore). Tammy’s empathetic embrace of a gay pastor with AIDS on her talk show starts the downfall of their empire, along with the revelation of her husband’s sexual encounter with church secretary Jessica Hahn (Alana Pollard), and of Jim’s shady scheme in creating the Christian housing development/theme park, Heritage USA. Like the documentary and Michael Showalter’s film “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” Graham (“Ink,” “This House”) attempts to place the show in the context of a larger national conservative movement — exploited by Falwell “to put God in the White House.” But the musical never goes beyond the obvious notes of religious hypocrisy, greed, egos and pandering politicians.
Or read this on Variety