Ohh, la la! ‘Moulin Rouge’ is a peppy pop party

Jay Armstrong Johnson as Christian and Arianna Rosario as Satine (with the company) in the 2025 touring production of Moulin Rouge! The Musical. Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade

This holiday season, forget your Scrooges, Grinches and Elves on Shelves. Moulin Rouge! The Musical is back (it was here in September 2022 – read my review here). Let’s spend this Christmas with licentious Bohemians and a consumptive courtesan. What could be more festive?

I had only seen Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 movie before stepping into the theater three years ago to see the stage adaptation, and I was blown away by the dazzle and the sheer force of the energy generated by the nearly 80 mashed-up pops songs and the lightning bolt choreography by Sonya Tayeh.

After that experience, I can only walk into a production of this musical with higher expectations. Happily, the 2025 tour meets and occasionally exceeds those expectations.

Jerica Exum is Satine (alternate) in Moulin Rouge! The Musical. Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade

I was struck this time by just how flimsy the storyline really is – part La Bohème-lite, part “hey, kids, let’s put on a show!” cheesiness, part Cabaret rip-off all wrapped up in a wedding reception with a great DJ. Not to worry. The book (by the estimable John Logan) is but a framework on which to hang the spectacle. This show may be all flash, bang and wallop, but empty-calorie dazzle can still be a lot of fun.

This is not so much a good show as it is an enjoyable and smart one. Logan and director Alex Timbers detonate a 2 1/2-hour pop music music explosion, and when music supervisor/co-orchestrator/arranger/lyricist/secret weapon Justin Levine goes to town with the manically choreographed (in the best sense) medleys, Moulin Rouge is its own kind of entertainment. It’s live music video, pop music celebration, kitschy noise parade, 21st-century Ziegfeld Follies (the gorgeous filigree sets by Derek McLane and costumes by Catherine Zuber would make Florenz proud).

Those bits where we are called upon to care about characters, their infatuations, their financial woes, their terminal conditions are sometimes eye-rollingly dumb (and that constitutes much of Act 2). But there’s always a surprising pop song lurking in the wings, waiting to get this empty-headed looker back on its booty-shaking track.

Jay Armstrong Johnson’s Christian hunkers down in a blue elephant with Arianna Rosario’s Satine. Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade

The pop artists represented in this mondo-mega-mashup are staggering in their diversity, from Cab Calloway to Lady Gaga. From Rick Astley to the Rolling Stones. Elton John emerges as the crown prince of romantic schmaltz, but both times I’ve seen the show, the song that gave me the biggest jolt of joy is “We Are Young” from the Jack Antonoff-led group fun. (gloriously preceded in medleyization by Lorde’s “Royals”).

One of the absolute delights of Moulin Rouge is listening to the audience react to the song selection with knowing waves of giggles and gasps. When the villainous Duke of Montroth, who practically twirls his mustache and ties damsels to the train tracks, makes his biggest impression, it’s with “Sympathy for the Devil,” which gets an appropriate level of delighted / contemptuous laughter.

The actors have to take all of this seriously and, more importantly, they have to sing the hell out of it. Jay Armstrong Johnson as Christian, the Ohio-born romantic lead, and Arianna Rosario as Satine, the courtesan with the cœur d’or, both embrace the joys of power pop and ‘80s balladry. They’re sincere and they’re winking at the absurdity of it all.

None of this can be taken seriously, otherwise we’d be watching Rent. Instead, we’re immersed in the Main Street Electrical Parade of Broadway musicals, complete with confetti cannons and frequent exhortations of, “Oh, my god! I love this song!”

That’s not exactly how I imagine opening night of Oklahoma! in 1943, but it’s the holidays and the end of the world. We’ll take what we can can can.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Moulin Rouge! The Musical continues through Dec. 28 as part of the BroadwaySF season at the Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market St., San Francisco. Running time: 2 hours and 35 minutes (including intermission). Tickets are $72.54-$308.88 (subject to change). Call 888-746-1799 or visit broadwaysf.com.