By the time Jasmine Amy Rogers  and Adrienne Warren trade affectionate insults in a lively, witty musical number,  each of some dozen other spectacular performers have already introduced their dissipated Jazz Age characters with their own showstoppers. “Best Friend,” the Rogers-Warren duet, is at the halfway point, and turns out to be something of a turning point, in “The Wild Party,” a 2000 Broadway musical getting the Encores! concert treatment at New York City Center through March 29.  The show, written  by Michael John LaChiusa and George C. Wolfe based on a poem  that Joseph Moncure March wrote exactly a century ago, makes debauchery seem almost delightful…until it doesn’t.  After “Best Friend,” the decadence turns ugly and relentless, and, at the end of the two hours without an intermission, the show has become harder to find entertaining.

There is admittedly a heavy hint of darkness from the moment we meet Queenie (the character Rogers portrays) with her latest, live-in boyfriend Burrs (Jordan Donica), who reacts in such a physical rage when Queenie asks him to pour her a cup of coffee that she brandishes a knife to ward him off.  Both are struggling performers in vaudeville, Burrs a comedian whom we first seen in blackface. After the confrontation, Burrs changes gears, and suggest they hold a party for their friends. “Gin. Skin. Sin. Fun,” he promises.

And so his guests deliver.

Claybourne Elder as Jackie, a privileged playboy, sings about himself:

I’m versatile and proud of it.
My gift is being dexterous.
My daddy called me “devil,”
But i call me, “ambisextrous.”

Wesley J. Barnes as Oscar D’Armano and Joseph A. Byrd as his brother Phil D’Armano are a tap-dancing duo seemingly based on the Nicholas Brothers, except there is more than a hint of an incestuous connection:

“If i’m sprung and spanky on a cocaine hum
While you’re weird and wanky puffing opium,
Whatever our cravings need,
We’ll both have – aside from weed –
A little m-m-m, a lotta yummy yum
For each other.

We are similarly introduced to Meghan Murphy as Miss Madelaine True, a “nearly famous stripper,” who does an impressive split, and brings a date Sally, a morphine addict portrayed by Betsy Morgan;

Lesli Margherita as Mae and her husb

and ex-boxing champion Eddie Mackrel (Evan Tyrone Martin), who bring along Mae’s 14-year-old sister Nadine (Maya Rowe.), and the theater producers Gold and Goldberg (Kj Hippensteel and Andrew Kober.)

Kate (Adrienne Warren) arrives with Black (Jelani Alladin.)  

Tonya Pinkins (who portrayed Kate in the original 2000 production) is here Dolores Montoyo, the grande if fading diva that Eartha Kitt originated.

Each gets some of the more than three dozen tuneful, jazzy musical numbers, enhanced immeasurably by Katie Spelman’s choreography. Many make their characters variously sultry or witty or deliciously degenerate.   Jasmine Amy Rogers is certainly stands out; the contrast with her star-making title role in “Boop” reassures us that her terrific performance in her Broadway debut was no one-off fluke.

  But there is an edge of desperation to almost all of the characters, and a dangerous recklessness to some that keep us at a distance.  Jordan Donica as Burrs is impressively fierce, although too violent and abusive to be as swoon-worthy  as his characters were in My Fair Lady and Camelot, despite that velvety bass-baritone.

Over the course of the party, in a swirl of actions that turn “The Wild Party” cheesily operatic, characters drink in a tub of gin, snort coke, commit adultery (no couple is left intact), commit violence, commit rape.  

The ugliness may help explain why the original Broadway production, which starred Toni Collette as Queenie and Mandy Patinkin as Burrs, ran for just 36 previews and 68 performances.  One might argue that, given the current federal government crackdown on people considered on the margins of society, the current production of “The Wild Party” can be seen as an act of resistance. But I don’t see Broadway audiences any more welcoming to the show, although the creative team seems to be hoping they will be. I say this because of a tell-tale sign in an Encore! concerts. None of the cast mbmers of “The Wild Party” were reading from binders; everybody had memorized their part – unlike most Encore concerts (such as last month’s “High Spirits”), but  exactly like the Encores concert of “Chicago,” the first Encores concert to transfer to Broadway, thirty years ago, where it remains.

The Wild Party
Encores at New York City Center through March 29
Running time: Two hours with no intermission
Tickets: $45 – $185
Music & Lyrics by Michael John LaChiusa 
Book by Michael John LaChiusa & George C. Wolfe 
Based on the poem by Joseph Moncure March 
Choreographer Katie Spelman 
Featuring The Encores! Orchestra 
Guest Music Director Daryl Waters 
Director Lili-Anne Brown
Scenic design  by Arnel Sancianco, costume design by Linda Cho, lighting design by Justin Townsend, sound design by Alex Neumann, hair and wig design by Tom Watson
Cast:  Jelani Alladin as Black, Wesley J. Barnes as Oscar D’Armano, Joseph A. Byrd as Phil D’Armano , Jordan Donica as Burrs, Claybourne Elder as Jackie, KJ Hippensteel as Gold, Andrew Kober as Goldberg, Lesli Margherita as Mae, Evan Tyrone Martin as Eddie Mackrel, Betsy Morgan as Sally, Meghan Murphy as Miss Madelaine True, Tonya Pinkins as Dolores Montoya, Maya Rowe as Nadine