'Pirate': Not really musical theater's finest 'arrrr!'

0 Comments | USA TODAY, April, 2007 | by Elysa Gardner

NEW YORK -- Before such hits as Grey Gardens and Spring Awakening, it seemed the story-and-song-driven musical was in danger of being replaced by camp-fests that mocked commercial musical theater.

Now The Pirate Queen (* out of four) has sailed along to remind us why: because by the 1990s, the commercial musical had pretty much devolved into a tuneless, witless spectacle.

Queen, which opened Thursday at Broadway's Hilton Theatre, is the latest bloated opus from Alan Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg, the duo behind Les Miserables and Miss Saigon; and the best thing that can be said about the new show is that it makes their previous ones seem like models of grace. Teaming with Riverdance producers Moya Doherty and John McColgan -- and Richard Maltby Jr., who...