I’ll admit it. When I first heard they were making a musical out of 1992’s “The Bodyguard,” the thriller starring Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston, I was skeptical. This was back in 2012 or so when the musical first hit Broadway and then headed out on tour.
It sort of made sense, since the movie featured Houston as an R&B singer, utilizing a lot of her hit songs. But I just couldn’t see it working as a typical musical. I didn’t get to see it when the tour came through Providence, so watching it this weekend at Matunuck’s Theatre by the Sea was my first experience with it.
Leave your skepticism at the door, folks. “The Bodyguard: The Musical” is an excellent show.
The story is true to the movie – as best as I can remember, anyway. Rachel Marron is a musical superstar with a stalker. When the stalker breaks into her dressing room while she’s performing and leaves a threatening note and steals one of her outfits, Marron’s management team calls in bodyguard Frank Farmer. In the movie, he’s a former Secret Service agent, but his background isn’t really a focal point in the musical.
He’s reluctant to take on the case. He’s not used to show-business superstars. But when Marron’s manager describes her as a “scared little girl with a 10-year-old son,” Marron agrees to take her on as a client. At first, his rigid measures are met with great resistance, especially by Marron, and by her existing security chief and publicist as well.
One thing leads to another – don’t they always? – and Marron and Farmer fall for each other. Toss in Marron’s sister Nicki who thinks Farmer has a thing for her, and you’ve got a love triangle happening.
Farmer determines that he can’t both love Marron and protect her, so the loving must end. All the while, there’s a stalker out there, getting increasingly inventive until things come to a head as Marron performs an Oscar-nominated song at the Academy Awards.
But honestly, the underlying story is incidental. It’s just a vehicle to keep us moving from song to song. All of Whitney Houston’s greatest hits are here: “Greatest Love of All;” “I’m Every Woman;” “I Wanna Dance with Somebody;” “One Moment in Time;’ and of course, “I Will Always Love You.”
The show’s opening number, “Queen of the Night,” sets the tone for the evening. Fantastic singing, spectacular dancing, fabulous outfits, and an amazingly simple yet wonderfully lit set. Not to mention music from the pit that is dead-on perfect.
Jenay Naima is terrific as Rachel Marron. She makes the songs her own, but when she sings “Don’t Walk Away from Me” and “I Will Always Love You,” she is very much channeling Houston. What a spectacular voice.
Matching her is LaDawn Taylor as Nicki Marron. She joins in with Naima, making a couple of songs duets, and they are lovely together. But she gets her own beautiful moment, singing “Saving All My Love for You” as a night club torch song.
Robb Sherman is appropriately uptight as Frank Farmer, the bodyguard, but has a moment where he lets his hair down, singing “I Will Always Love You” – quite badly – in a karaoke club. His attempts to bail himself out are augmented by Christopher Scurlock, the DJ who tries in vain to conduct Farmer.
There is so much to like about “The Bodyguard: The Musical” at Theatre by the Sea. And be sure you stay for the dance party that follows the curtain call. You do not want to miss that.
[“The Bodyguard: The Musical” plays through August 5 at Theatre by the Sea on Cards Pond Road in Wakefield. For tickets and info, visit www.theatrebythesea.com or call the box office at 401.782.TKTS – ask for Marcia!]
