The year is 1899 in Paris and the Moulin Rouge is a cabaret club where everything is splendidly over the top. Despite this, the club’s finances are shaky and a somewhat desperate club owner, Harold Zidler, places his hopes on the Duke of Monroth to bankroll them out of their misery.
Zidler assigns Satine, the club’s star and a courtesan, to the Duke. In wanders Christian, a young American Bohemian along with his friends Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Santiago and soon enough Satine must decide between saving the club and her growing attraction to Christian.
And befitting the Belle Époque era, she has consumption, an illness she is keeping secret from everyone else.
It’s Moulin Rouge! The Musical, winner of 10 Tony Awards, back in Houston with updated music courtesy of the national tour coming to Broadway at the Hobby. Robert Petkoff (Broadway: Moulin Rouge! The Musical, Ragtime, All The Way, Anything Goes, Spamalot, Fiddler on the Roof and Epic Proportions) has the Harold Zidler role.
“Harold is a bad businessman. He’s a little venial as the Duke says. He’s got a little corruption running through his veins. At heart, he wants to keep this world alive, he wants to keep it afloat. He is part con man, part salesman, part father figure. All of these things rolled up which is what makes it so interesting for me to play,” Petkoff says.
So why if this cabaret is so popular, why is it at risk of going under? “I suspect that Harold is skimming money and I think that he’s been extravagant,” Petkoff says. “He wants to make the Moulin Rouge extraordinary so he’s outspending what he’s taking in. I think he likes to party with the patrons more then he likes to manage the books.”
When Baz Luhrmann’s movie first came out, half the audience and critics loved it; the others hated it.
“First of all, Baz Luhrmann’s style is so extraordinary; it’s frenetic and energetic. When the story starts it’s like ‘Where do I look?’ There’s so many things happening. As it goes deeper into the story, some of that settles down a little bit and gets more serious. In a way he’s trying to capture that bohemian spirit in the Moulin Rouge – a place where the wealthiest people of Paris mingled with the poorest people of Paris. “
The musical, in fact, continues that theme of extravagance. Satine enters on a trapeze style swing and will be flying out over the first few rows of Sarofim Hall seating at the Hobby Center.
Asked for the differences between being on tour and on Broadway – he’s been in a number of touring shows as well – is the audience, Petkoff says.
“The biggest difference is that every couple of weeks you’re picking up and going to a different city. On Broadway I think the audiences are for the most part, tourists coming from all over the world and all over America. But what’s lovely about touring is you get to go into a community, and you get to have that specific community’s response to your show.
“It absolutely does vary from city to city and sometimes with wonderful surprises,” he says as sometimes the audience responses upset all the actors’ preconceived notions.
While extolling the benefits of the “share experience” that is theater, Petkoff mentions that “We very much encourage the audience at the very end to sing along with us.
“At the very end there’s a little mega mix of different songs that I sing the line and then the audience will sing the line. It’s really fun when people sing along and do some of the movements that we’re doing. It’s nice to lighten the mood before everybody goes home.”
Performances are scheduled for July 14-19 at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, 7 p.m. Sunday and 2 p.m. Saturday and 1:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sunday at the Hpbby Center, 800 Bagby. For more information, call 713-315-7625 or visit thehobbycenter.org or broadwayatthehobbycenter.com $50-$185.
