In an age of movie-to-musical adaptations, Death Becomes Her has obvious appeal: it is, after all, about two aging friends who stumble into immortality and eternal youth and then proceed to destroy each other’s bodies.  Iconic moments include a head-wrenching fall down the stairs and a shotgun blast through the chest.  The potential for musical comedy and stage effects is plentiful.

For the most part, this adaptation (music and lyrics by Julia Mattison and Noel Carey, book by Marco Pennette) succeeds in translating the movie’s pleasures to the stage.  “For the Gaze,” an early song—note on the homonym—makes clear its commitments to camp, and actors in drag double for the leads during the major stunts.  The two leads, Megan Hilty and Jennifer Simard, are terrific divas, and Michelle Williams, a real diva, lends authority to the proceedings as the demonic potion seller.

The effects are wonderful and combine slow-motion, a convincing neck prosthetic, trick costumes, and old-fashioned stage magic.  My one complaint is that there wasn’t more.  In the movie, the violence is cumulative, so each injury adds a new, greater indignity to the character.  Here, the violence is transient.  For example, the hole-through-the-stomach effect is abandoned in the following scene, when Simard changes her costume.

Still, despite this quibble, the show has enough laughs and spectacle to warrant attendance.  This is Broadway at its maximalist near-best.

Death Becomes Her runs through April 5th, 2026 at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre.  205 W. 46th Street  New York, NY.  2 hours 30 minutes. One intermission. Photograph by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman.