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Michael Jackson the man might be a tricky proposition nowadays, but Michael Jackson the musician remains an undimmable legend. This high-energy jukebox show arrives from Broadway, where it continues to play, trailing a handful of Tony Awards. The musical numbers and dazzling choreography are unbeatable, yet there is something of a hole where the innermost heart of the piece ought to be. The man in the mirror stays elusively, frustratingly just out of reach.
All credit to the project for engaging a serious playwright to craft the book. Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage tries to add some heft to the hagiography, but seems somewhat constrained, perhaps by the fact that the Michael Jackson Estate is one of the partners on the project. In Nottage’s account, Jackson is far more sinned against than sinning – although reference is made to his use of painkillers spiralling out of control.
The set-up is crisp and simple: it is the last couple of days of rehearsal for Jackson’s epic 1992 Dangerous world tour and nerves are fraying as the costs of his exacting vision mount. Director Rob (Ashley Zhangazha, excellent) is trying to keep a handle on events, although the presence of an MTV journalist eager for the inside scoop isn’t helping to spread calm. Into this tuneful cauldron slinks the man himself, black fedora pulled low on forehead, and from the opening seconds of Myles Frost’s astonishing performance we understand that we are in the presence of something rare and special.
The limber Frost has Jackson’s sinuous snake hips and knees-with-inbuilt-springs, which means all the dance moves in director/choreographer Christopher Wheeldon’s fizzing production (blessed as it is with a notably skilled ensemble) are impeccable. In his eerily, almost ethereally fine turn, Frost captures the gently creepy cadences of Jackson’s soft speaking voice and compellingly convinces us of a troubled soul, a grown adult still haunted by childhood demons. For Nottage’s script intercuts rehearsal scenes with snippets of the early days of the Jackson Five, ruled by tyrannical and violent father Joseph (Zhangazha again).
At moments of heightened tension, it is deliberately and intriguingly unclear which of the two men Zhangazha is portraying. In the second half, when the musical numbers truly let rip after the stop/start rhythm of Act One, “Thriller” is reconceived in a haunted fairground with Joseph as chief monster. MJ’s demonic drive for perfection powers everything, but we leave the theatre no wiser as to the enigma at the centre of the man. Ardent Jackson fans will have no truck with such quibbles; for everyone else it will not be quite so Black or White.
Prince Edward Theatre London, booking to 7 December (0344 482 5151, mjthemusical.com)
