A more-than-respectable entry in the endless parade of movies-to-musicals, this genuinely funny, effervescently performed pre-Broadway take on the 1992 Robert Zemeckis dark comedy “ Death Becomes Her ” has a better, and more sympathetic, understanding of the female vanity and rivalry at its core — and their underlying camp qualities — than the original film ever did. Going for the camp jugular brings risks, but lead performers Megan Hilty (“Smash,” “9 to 5: The Musical”) and Jennifer Simard (“Once Upon a One More Time,” “Company”) put forth the teamwork, timing, and ribald titillation to make it work. Originally starring Meryl Streep as a fading movie star, Goldie Hawn as her bookish, lifelong frenemy, Bruce Willis as the plastic surgeon they fight over, and Isabella Rossellini as the purveyor of a magic potion that promises eternal youth, the film, written by Martin Donovan and David Koepp, fell apart soon after a flurry of spectacular special effects depicting bodily damage (a spinning head, a giant shotgun hole) that demonstrated the potential pitfalls, and black humor, of immortality combined with physical catastrophe.
Book writer Marco Pennette (showrunner on “Ugly Betty”) makes many smart choices in this adaptation, starting with Michelle Williams (still most famous for her time with Destiny’s Child) in the Rossellini role, singing to us that, “I have a secret you would die for.” Dressed in a glam black gown with a stand-up collar worth.
