The 2012 documentary The Queen of Versailles is remarkable.  Its subject, Jackie Siegel, is a mother of eight and the much-younger wife of David Siegel, the founder and CEO of the largest timeshare company in the world.  Jackie and David are building a 90,000 square-foot home, one of the largest in America, modeled on the Palace of Versailles.  During the Great Recession, their fortunes turn.  David becomes obsessed with holding on to the PH Towers in Las Vegas, while Jackie is forced to economize.  Both sound like fairly unsympathetic characters, and sure, David is an asshole, but Jackie somehow manages to win the audience over, largely because she defies all the stereotypes of a scheming climber.  This is a woman who loves her husband and is generous to her family.

The new musical adaptation, with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and a book by Lindsey Ferrentino, more or less follows the plot of the documentary.  There is an added framing device featuring Louis XIV (Pablo David Laucerica), who built the palace and was known for his excess—he once received an African elephant as a gift from King Peter II of Portugal.  The musical also includes events that occurred after the filming of the documentary.  Kristin Chenoweth plays Jackie, an obvious but good choice, since her spunky energy is tailor-made for the role.  F. Murray Abraham plays David, a character who has been a little softened here.  When Jackie cooks him a Cornish hen, he tells her, “Listen, you don’t have to be fancy around me … You and me, we’re cut from the same cloth.”  Their love story is made a little more conventional, and the songs are unmemorable.

However, the main problem with this Queen of Versailles is the same problem faced by any adaptation of a documentary with compelling characters: the real thing will always be more interesting.  The absurdity, the excess, the disregard for reality, all are more dynamic when you are looking at the actual house, not a representation of the house, or listening to the actual people, not the actors impersonating them.  For this reason, there doesn’t seem to be enough of a reason to stage a musical adaptation of The Queen of Versailles.  A musical can add value to a story through maximalism, but what happens when the source material leaves no room for further embellishment?

The Queen of Versailles runs through January 4th at the St. James Theatre.  246 W. 44th Street  New York, NY.  2 hours 40 minutes.  One intermission. Photograph by Julieta Cervantes.