Following the 2000 documentary The Eyes of Tammy Faye, produced by World of Wonder and narrated by RuPaul, and the 2021 narrative feature adaptation of the same name that won Oscars for lead actress Jessica Chastain and the film’s makeup and hairstyling, the tantalizing tale of televangelist Tammy Faye Messner (formerly Bakker) is now on Broadway at the beautifully renovated Palace Theatre until Sunday, December 8th, 2024. With its larger-than-life central character, her flair for camp fashion, that unmistakably bold, extravagantly-applied eye makeup, and the chorus of envious and disapproving conservative men who surrounded and criticized her—including the notorious Rev. Jerry Falwell (chillingly played by Tony-winner Michael Cerveris)—Tammy Faye’s story feels like it was tailor-made for this high-spirited musical theatre treatment.
With music by EGOT Sir Elton John that really takes us to church, lyrics by Grammy-nominated Scissor Sisters frontman Jake Shears, a book by Olivier-winning playwright James Graham, choreography by Tony-nominee Lynne Page, and direction by British theatre luminary Rupert Goold, the show’s first-rate credentials speak for themselves. Prior to Broadway, Tammy Faye world premiered at London’s Almeida Theatre in October 2022, where Goold, whose screen credits as director include the Oscar-winning Judy, serves as artistic director. That production was nominated for four Olivier Awards, including Best New Musical, and went on to win two: Best Actor in a Supporting Role in a Musical for Zubin Varla and Best Actress in a Musical for Katie Brayben as Tammy Faye, who dazzles as she reprises the role on Broadway.
The show opens with Tammy Faye looking like she has just arrived in the afterlife as she sits in the bright white expanse of an open stage, but she is actually at her proctologist’s office in the mid-1990s where she is given the devastating news that she has colon cancer. As Tammy Faye attempts to lighten the mood, joking that the recommended surgery would leave her with a “semicolon”, the tone of the scene, like much of the rest of the musical, is heightened, funny, and tenderly poignant.
As Tammy reflects back on her life, the show goes on to hit all of its groundbreaking highs and scandalous lows, including meeting her husband Jim Bakker (Tony-winner Christian Borle, Some Like It Hot) and co-hosting a faith-based puppet TV show with him (it’s how RuPaul got one of his Drag Race refrains: “everybody loves puppets”). Before long, the couple went on to dominate the evangelical television airwaves as co-hosts of the flagship program on The PTL (Praise The Lord) Network, The PTL Club.
Riding high on their popularity, the couple battled troubles in their private life—like infidelity, Bakker’s repressed homosexuality, and Tammy’s addiction to prescription drugs—to put on a display of marital harmony for the cameras. Meanwhile, they tapped their millions of viewers for cash in order to build an ambitious Christian theme park and hotel, Heritage USA. Eventually, the IRS stepped in and everything began to come crashing down around them. Tammy, who recorded a slew of albums and singles including “The Ballad of Jim and Tammy”, would go on to become an inspiration for drag queens and an unlikely gay icon, guesting on RuPaul’s chat show and appearing at pride events. Towards the end of the show the older Tammy admits, “I could never have done it without…the gays.” While Falwell would go on to become even more extreme, partially blaming gay people, along with feminists and abortionists, for the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
With her appealingly upbeat, gentle and inviting screen persona, along with her distinctive brand of glamour—that seemed at odds with her Christian fundamentalist roots—Tammy Faye gave her adoring viewers permission to emulate her and speak their own minds, rather than existing as obedient servants to their husbands. She was remarkable for the way that she opened up taboo topics of conversations on The PTL Club, such as erectile disfunction, and for the diverse range of guests she interviewed. Perhaps most notable, and earning her the admiration of many gay men, including RuPaul and no doubt Sir Elton—who established one of the world’s leading AIDS organizations in 1992, EJAF—was her 1985 interview with gay pastor Steve Pieters (an affectingly stoic Charl Brown) who had been diagnosed with AIDS.
This was at the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis in the United States, and only two months after then US President Reagan (Ian Lassiter, who skillfully takes on multiple roles) had publicly uttered the word AIDS for the first time, in an era of heightened homophobia and fearmongering. Tammy Faye admirably went against the grain and chose to use her influence to demonstrate a model of what Christian values meant to her, of showing true compassion and love for her fellow humans, rather than moralizing about a disease that was frequently referred to as “God’s punishment”. She attempted to address some of that ignorance and misinformation (much of it spread by her fellow televangelists) head-on while speaking with Pieters.
That episode forms a pivotal, deeply moving scene in the show. Whereas the real-life interview was conducted via satellite link with Tammy Faye in the PTL studio and Pieters appearing on a television screen (due to Pieters’ chemotherapy treatment schedule), wisely, on stage Tammy and Pieters are placed in the same room sitting face to face, making the emotional and physical connection between them all the more powerful. With Graham incorporating some verbatim dialogue, it is a calm, focused scene with real impact.
A major musical highlight of Act One is the toe-tappingly uptempo ensemble bop with strains of the 70s, “He’s Inside Me”, which stretches one blasphemous innuendo throughout the number striking comedy gold with some cheeky, butt-slapping dance moves. Tammy Faye is satisfyingly structured with the framework of Tammy looking back over her life, suggesting that we are seeing things from her perspective, but there is a lot of ground to cover and it might have benefitted from a tighter focus on a specific time period along with further insight into her motivations and mindset.
The beating heart of this vibrant production is Katie Brayben as Tammy Faye, with phenomenal vocals that fall somewhere between the power of Bonnie Tyler and the pureness of Dolly Parton. Brayben’s delicate and nuanced performance eschews what could easily have been a caricature scoring easy laughs. Instead, she allows us to see both the public face, and the emotion and vulnerability behind the mascara. Along with exuding a palpable warmth and kindness, Brayben also brings a combination of willful naiveté and strength to her embodiment of a woman navigating a fiercely patriarchal sphere, with Graham’s dialogue and Shears’ lyrics allowing her to be all these things at once. Brayben successfully channels those layers into to her performance to create a sensitive yet steely, very human portrait. In fact, the show’s most compelling scenes are when Brayben is on stage alone and Tammy’s solo ballads “Empty Hands” and “If You Came To See Me Cry” are real standouts. Also vital in bringing Tammy Faye to the stage is the outstanding work of costume designer Katrina Lindsay and Luc Verschueren’s wigs, hair, and makeup designs with some nice 70s period details that really pop. Although I did find myself wanting Tammy’s eye makeup to be even more exaggerated when we see it in close-ups.
Another star of this production is its set design by Bunny Christie, especially the versatile wall of TV screens that often forms a backdrop and helps to create the tension and buzz associated with broadcasting a live cable show. At times, various cast members appear in the individual boxes as if they are inside a television, or appearing on celebrity game show, whereas at others each square is used as a projection surface, with effective video designs by Finn Ross. In several scenes, the entire wall of squares becomes one giant TV screen with a live video feed of the actors in close-up. Whereas in numerous other recent productions, the use of live video has felt like a distraction that did not add much, with Tammy Faye, Goold uses them to great effect including a post-intermission sequence where we see Tammy in a private moment in her dressing room as she steels herself. Shot live, with Brayben in front of a mirror backstage, it helps to immerse us in the world of live TV and conveys the mounting pressure that Tammy is feeling as she struggles with addiction.
Ultimately, this is a well-crafted, brilliantly performed, hugely enjoyable and genuinely touching show, but at times I did find myself questioning how necessary it was to revisit Tammy Faye’s story at this particular moment. One aspect that is sharply relevant is the merging of politics and religion that we see unfolding around Tammy, which forms part of how we came to our current situation politically. As referenced in the show, when Nixon addressed the nation from the Oval Office in 1973 in response to the growing Watergate scandal, he ended his speech with “God Bless America”. This was something that Reagan would really run with as part of his “Make America Great Again” campaign, making firing up a white evangelical Christian base a core part of his election strategy and presidency. I was also left thinking about how the likes of Tammy and Jim on The PTL Club, mining their audience for cash at the height of their success, plays out today in the outsized influence of cable news personalities, reality shows stars, and those with massive social media and podcast followings.
Generally sympathetic towards Tammy Faye the woman, as the final curtain falls, the overall intention of the piece remains a little hazy and the end result is more a tender celebration of her life, and the love and light that she brought the world, rather than a biting satire of televangelism and the hypocrisy of its leading figures which might have packed more of a punch. Although there certainly are successful elements of that critque throughout.
By James Kleinmann
Tammy Faye officially opened on Broadway at the Palace Theatre (160 West 47th street, New York) on Thursday, November 14th, 2024 and runs until Sunday, December 8th. For tickets and more information head to TammyFayeBway.com.