In Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, characters pointedly argue over the differences between restoration versus renovation when it comes to securing the stately 19th century architectural heritage of Savannah, Georgia. That’s a telling detail not only in John Berendt’s 1994 bestselling book, but also the Goodman Theatre’s very entertaining world-premiere musical adaptation, also called Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
But rather than architectural preservation, it’s likely die-hard fans of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil will be debating how Berendt’s raw material has been renovated into a splashy stage musical—all so that the ‘80s Savannah society folk and scallywags captured in the book can now raise their voices in song.
Any page-to-stage adaptation of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil presents a challenge, especially with Berendt’s sprawling storytelling with so many eccentric Southern characters. The book’s central true-crime gay murder trial also takes several twists and turns, so any adapter would want to simplify it to just a single event (like in director Clint Eastwood’s serviceable 1997 film adaptation).
This challenge of refashioning Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil into a musical is ambitiously taken up by acclaimed drag performer/playwright Taylor Mac (Hir, Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus) and Tony Award-winning composer-lyricist Jason Robert Brown (Parade, The Bridges of Madison County). Their sturdy stage work emerges with far more diversity and inclusiveness in the process, though Mac and Brown may want to narrow their focus even further.
Surprisingly excised from the musical is Berendt’s role as the book’s white, male Yankee narrator. A fictionalized version of him as a go-with-the-flow journalist was also a structural feature of the film.
Nowadays such a storyteller can be interpreted as a carpetbagger cultural appropriator. Instead, Mac and Brown take the unconventional approach of making the whole audience into the book’s author who collectively gets swept up into Savannah’s many societies and scandals.
With the knowledge that they might become the main character of a novelization, Savannah’s many outgoing citizens start preening and jockeying for prime stage position.
Near the outset it’s clear that Jim Williams, the semi-closeted antiques dealer and restorer of the historic downtown Mercer House, is one of the leading and social-climbing characters. A sturdily voiced Tom Hewitt as Jim distinguishes Savannah from its Southern cousins with “Bonaventure,” a rousing and humorous introductory ensemble drinking song set in a cemetery.
Another contender exuding main-character energy is the transgender drag star The Lady Chablis (Some Like it Hot Tony Award-winner J. Harrison Ghee in an outstanding and commanding performance). Ghee’s Lady Chablis also shines with flashy production numbers featuring the celebratory choreography of Tanya Birl-Torres.
With a sharp wit and an honest demeanor, The Lady Chablis is much more open about who she is as a showgirl entertainer compared to the nouveau riche striving and hiding of Jim Williams.
Emma Dawes is a worthy adversary to Jim as the internationally recognized (and fictionally constructed) Historic Savannah Foundation spokeswoman. A running gag is how Emma is forever boasting about her invitations to The White House in Washington, D.C.
Emma is a great comic role and both Mac and Brown tailor it to show off the impressive operatic soprano range of Broadway vet Sierra Boggess. Emma also commands a great cadre of society ladies, marvelously played by the likes of McKinley Carter, Mary Ernster, Jessica Molaskey and Kayla Shipman (each wearing loud ’80s glamor outfits by costumer Toni-Leslie James that would be right at home on the sitcom Designing Women).
Jim also commandeers more stage time thanks for a “Reasonable Doubt” shooting of his hot-headed and rough-trade assistant, Danny Hansford (a very hunky Austin Colby). By contrast, The Lady Chablis and close friend, Jack The One-Eyed Jill (a wonderful Wes Olivier), deal more with the indignities of their shaky entertainment job market as Savannah gentrifies into a high-priced tourist mecca.
Mac and Brown have drawn from real-life composites in the refashioning of select musical characters, such as Lance Roberts taking on the general lawyer role of Bobby Hutchins and Bailee Endebrock as the head-strong rich girl Corinne Strong. Others new ones are created entirely from the whole cloth of fiction (like Shanel Bailey as the ambitious and sparkle-eyed Savannah debutant Lavella Cole, who faces difficulties in getting capital to start a new business).
While fans of the original might be irked by this, Berendt has admitted to tinkering with time lines and co-mingling a few fact-based characters into fiction for his own book’s storytelling chronology.
One such character is the underdeveloped voodoo medium Minerva, as played solemnly in the musical by Brianna Buckley. During the musical’s opening, Minerva intones and invites the city’s spirits to re-emerge.
Past is always present in director Rob Ashford’s fluid staging, as ghosts of Savannah’s Antebellum past stroll by (and strategically sweep on and offstage the sculptural set pieces by designer Christopher Oram). Lighting designers Neil Austin and Jamie Platt also a great job of illuminating the brightness and shadows of this city spared by General Sherman’s March to the Sea during the Civil War.
With so many supporting characters, there’s a great sense of Savannah’s many communities that are jam-packed into Berendt’s book. But onstage, I wish the musical’s compare-and-contrast focus was more spelled out between The Lady Chablis and Jim Williams in terms of the openness in how they lead their lives. Sometimes it feels like Mac and Brown allow the supporting characters to crowd out the spotlight of the main stars.
While Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil doesn’t quite feel completely comfortable in its new musical stage adaptation, what Mac and Brown have concocted is certainly smart, stylistically impressive and extremely entertaining. This next chapter of pushing Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil further into the realm of American Southern mythology is unquestionably a renovation that should proceed by all means.
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil continues its extended run through Aug. 11 at the Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St. Tickets are $25 to $175, though dynamic pricing may come into effect. For information, visit goodmantheatre.org or phone 312-443-3800.