Kitschy is a demeaning, overused adjective, and it’s one undeserved
by Tonya & Nancy: The Rock Opera.
Kitsch is about pretension and bad taste. It’s about being inferior
to something “authentic.” This production is about none of those
things. I was nervous it would be about all of them.
The theme—Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan’s bitter rivalry
leading up to the 1994 Winter Olympics—is a golden thread from
which drug-hazed hipster reminiscences are half-assedly woven. Even the
flyer for the show has all the hallmarks of badly executed trash. But
the play defies such expectations: It is brilliant and touching.
It doesn’t flinch from Harding’s trashy background, nor from joking
at her expense, but neither does it preclude the notion that poor women
can be heroes. It’s a cliché, sure, but also a founding
principle of great art.
“My mom is legally blind,” sings Lilla D’Mone as Kerrigan, in the
introductory number.
“My mom is legally nuts,” responds Beth Willis as Harding, punchy as
Medea.
A chorus of 10 repeatedly highlights the differences between the two
girls, which aren’t subtle. But then neither was Dirty Dancing,
and neither was King Lear.
D’Mone captures the infuriating whining of the spoiled Kerrigan, but
she believes sufficiently in the performance to add some real depth to
the character.
Meanwhile, Willis’ feisty acrobatics and cries of “Fall Nancy, fall”
are just part of her sophisticated portrayal of a good girl struggling
with her crueler instincts. Speaking of which, Dale Johannes is both
funny and muscularly brutal as Harding’s ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly. The
best song of the production is “When You Wake up Sleeping in Your Car
in Estacada,” delivered with all the pop rebel integrity of “Do You
Really Want to Hurt Me” by Culture Club.
But I swear it’s not kitschy. If anything, it’s Stanley Kowalski,
people. Still, Portland, I suspect, will be anxious to deny this
production its artistic genius until it’s produced in New York, when
we’ll all have to say, “I told you it was brilliant.” Well, I told you
it was brilliant.
Let’s not be ashamed of something marvelous, just because it reminds
us who we are.