The Trouble With Burlesque

This week, I had to laugh stumbling on Cher’s ambivalence about the movie musical Burlesque: “I drove all of them crazy,” she told the Irish Independent in 2010, admitting the character she played “wasn’t exactly who she turned out to be on screen.”

Writer-director Steven Antin, hearing she was wavering, tracked her down at Sony’s offices — “stalking Cher for an hour and a half,” as he put it.

“Terrible director! Really terrible director. And really terrible script.”Not my words, readers (although, having said that …), but the words of Cher in 2013. 

The Hollywood Reporter published a report that director Antin and Screen Gems president Clint Culpepper, a longtime couple, had collaborated on the film were said to have “jaw-dropping” clashes on set. 

During one incident, someone reportedly poured an iced tea over Antin’s head, forcing Antin to recoil backwards into a rack of clothes. 

Righto. It should be said, right from the start, that more than a decade on, the stage version is once again proving its own kind of nuts. 

The UK tour opens in Woking later this month, but word from the rehearsal room is of a chaotic working environment, a frustration echoed by more than one member of the creative team who’ve spoken to me directly about what’s going on behind the scenes: “Cast members come in every day complaining about how they’re not being taught the show.”

Oh God. Meanwhile, at Marble Arch, owners of the new London theatre are said to be hedging their bets — holding talks with three or four alternative productions in case the current production never makes it to the venue.

Then there’s the money. Todrick Hall, who contributed a lot of original music to the show, has described a “rollercoaster” experience working on it, and is reported to be owed royalties in the region of £100,000. Lawyers for Antin have, of course, rejected that claim. 

Either way, sources point to a dispute over royalty splits on several songs — including “Pretty Girls,” “Dirty Martini” and “Fabulous” — with suggestions Antin is seeking a cut despite no credited songwriting input, though this has not been confirmed.

Whatever the truth of this latest dispute, the pattern emerging is a stage adaptation of a film even its own star now publicly disowns, trailed by unresolved money questions and more off-stage drama. 

Frankly, you could draw your own conclusions by reading the company accounts for Burlesque The Musical and TR Heels Limited — suspicious circular loans, an operation that could be filed under T.W.I: trading while insolvent. (Listen, I just type this stuff.) 

As it goes, questions abound from various sides of the fence. Around twenty people have declined to comment on the record — some bound by shadowy legal tools, others simply too rattled by their time in Antin’s orbit to revisit it. “It took every ounce of my strength and resilience, along with the help of my agent and union to survive it,” one told me. 

Another: “I don’t want my name tied to the show. I’ve been reminded there are ways to ruin my career, and I don’t want to push any boundary that might invite a targeted attack.”

And: “It’s a line on the CV people will be scrubbing.” 

That’s showbiz – try not to choke on it.

Anyhoo: back to Antin The Terrible. I imagine he ends each day plotting the next one; hunched over his homemade shoebox auditorium, moving marionettes of his cast and crew to game out scenarios in which he always has the last word.

Put candidly… That, in the end, is the cautionary sadness of the form: the daylight only ever falls on the parts we let it. Antin’s track record is merely a reminder of how uncomfortable that daylight can be. 

And of a widely regarded thug who seems rather more practised at taking credit for work he never did.

Still, it feels inevitable that another tiresomely chaotic narrative should be cranking up around this diabolical show. It is an apocalyptic playlist on perpetual shuffle. As I hit publish on this blog, I have received word that the sound team and trucking company have not been paid and have downed tools.

As is the fashion of the era, Musical Theatre is a game played for the highest stakes.