Can’t King Tut Rest in Peace?
Tut
Theater at St. Clement’s
423 W. 46th Street,
New York, N.Y.
Tutankhamen, the boy king of Egypt who died at 19, has been the subject of movies, television shows, documentaries, books, forensics investigations, songs and a Steve Martin impersonation. He’s appeared in the 1960s Batman television series and even in a Three Stooges movie. If Bravo’s Real Housewives series was around when he ruled, 1341-1323 B.C., they would have featured him and the palace girls in a show, complete with chair throwing.
And now Marcus Hummon has written a musical about King Tut, simply titled Tut, at the Theater of St. Clement’s, as part of the annual New York Musical Theatre Festival 201l, in which servant girls, generals, high priests and King Tut himself sing and dance along the banks of the Nile. Won’t people ever let poor King Tut rest in peace?
The Tut legend is pretty interesting in and of itself. People who conducted two recent autopsies of him, using the latest scientific equipment, have charged that he was murdered (the play suggests this, too). He was the victim of palace intrigue, the Nubian army, his uncle and a jealous general. His body was discovered by Howard Carter in Egypt in 1922, in what was one of the greatest archaeological finds in history. Right after the body and the magnificent treasures buried with it were taken out of the ground, curses started to fall upon many of the people connected to the dig. The entire excavation soon became shrouded in mystery. Tut’s life, and the discovery of his coffin, offer a lot of material for a musical, and some big dance numbers, too.
They are not in this version of Tut’s tale. Hummon’s sparse, eighty minute play, which is more like an opera than a musical, has three gears—slow, slower and slowest. The story starts with the execution of Tut’s dad and the child’s ascension to Pharaoh at the age of nine, with palace politics starting before he becomes a teenager. The story shifts back and forth from Tut’s life to the life of Howard Carter.
In this play, the boy king grew into a teenager and then, at 19, led his army against Nubia and was almost killed. This creates a problem. The real Tut had a deformed leg and used a cane and special shoes to walk and it would be unusual for him to lead attacks. The actor playing Tut in this play, Curtis Wiley, not only appears quite healthy, but looks like a defensive tackle for the Minnesota Vikings. His uncle, anxious for the crown, conspired with others to murder him. Then they took his name out of the history books and off the monuments and, until Carter discovered his tomb, he was pretty much a forgotten ruler from long ago.
The story moves slowly, oh so slowly, and the uninspiring music does not help. Wiley, as Tut, Kris Coleman as General Horemheb, and Jesse Means, as High Priest Ay, try to bring the story and music to life, but fail. The rather slick choreography is pretty good, but gets lost on the small stage. The one real asset of the show, a brilliant asset, is the work of actor Sean Maclaughlin as archaeologist Howard Carter. He is a fine actor, a good singer and keeps the audience connected to the play.
Actually, book writer, composer and lyricist Hummon might have been better off, much better off, scrapping old Egypt and concentrating all of the action of Carter’s discovery of Tut’s tomb. That was an interesting story and songs could be written to make it a decent musical.
Director Abdel Salaam oversees a cast that includes Charlene Ava (Achmed, Tut’s love) and others.
This King Tut should have remained buried in the desert.
PRODUCTION: Produced by the New York Musical Theatre Festival and Reggie Hill. Sets: en Larsen, Costumes: Abdel R. Salaam, Lighting: Temisha S. Johnson, Sound: David Margolin Lawson, Musical director: Jodie Moore, Director: Abdel R. Salaam
Bruce Chadwick can be reached at bchadwick@njcu.edu.