The real Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov was murdered alongside her father Tsar Nicholas II and the rest of her family during Russia’s Bolshevik revolution in 1918. Rumours of her survival persist – despite irrefutable evidence to the contrary – because the myth of the lost princess is a heady and seductive one, fodder for cheap historical fiction and, yes, animated kids movies. This 2017 Broadway musical – which premiered in Australia in Melbourne at the weekend, before a national tour – isn’t a Disney production but it apes Disney’s approach slavishly: heap with sentiment, dazzle with bling and try to say as little as possible.
Based on the 1997 film, with music by Stephen Flaherty and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, this Anastasia (Georgina Hopson) naturally survives the completely fictional storming of her family’s palace (there was one but years after their deaths) to become a street sweeper in St Petersburg. She conveniently has amnesia and believes her name is Anya, a lazy plot device from the movie that the book writer, Terrence McNally, doesn’t fix.
