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Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
National
Catey Sullivan - For the Sun-Times

Bounty of pop music fires up the romance, momentum of ‘Moulin Rouge!’ stage musical

Moulin Rouge Baz Luhrmann Conor Ryan David Harris Harold Zidler Katy Perry Madonna Matw Murphy Michael Murphy LaBelle

As a setting for musical theater, Paris’s iconic Moulin Rouge nightclub is a natural. Baz Luhrmann knew that when he set his tragic, surreal Puccini-indebted 2001 movie (starring Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor) in the legendary, absinthe-soaked palace of Belle Epoch decadence. “Moulin Rouge” the movie was a gaudy, tawdry, glamorous, music-infused extravaganza that burned its way into a nation’s collective eye-balls and ear canals.

The 1899-set stage version, “Moulin Rouge! The Musical,” currently playing at the Nederlander Theatre, is based on the movie and arrives with a similar vibe. The 10-time Tony Award winner directed by Alex Timbers captures the fever-dream pace, the lavish excess and the irresistible music of its titular inspiration in countless spangly ways. 

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