Poor King Kong trapped in a bad musical

The mighty ape was an awesome sight on opening night at the Broadway Theatre but the show was just two acts of desperate cannibalising of bygone inspiration. Photo / Getty Images

If you're of a mind to pay 150 bucks or more to see the best Thanksgiving Day Parade float ever, have I got a show for you!

Be warned, though: there are strings attached. And not just to the 907kg beast made of steel and carbon fibre operated by a slew of puppeteers, whose roar rattles the rafters of the Broadway Theatre.

Because when you are not marvelling at the impressive engineering that's gone into the evening's star performance, you'll have to subject yourself to what feels like the equally animatronic contributions of the writers and director-choreographer of Broadway's musical King Kong.

This dreary, Australian-bred concoction, staged by Drew McOnie, is theme-park Broadway at its most transparent.

It's a perfect example of how investor-driven producing entities now try to build musicals they think audiences desire - rather than what artists want to create.

It's theatre born on a spreadsheet.

Like the recent unveilings of Pretty Woman on Broadway and Beetlejuice in Washington, King Kong, which had its official opening last week, comes across as two acts of desperate cannibalising of bygone inspiration.

For good reason, the giant puppet - designed by Sonny Tilders - gets the final curtain call in King Kong.

Over the course of two and a half hours, the musical identifies only three other essential characters: heartless showman Carl Denham (Eric William Morris); his insecure helper, Lumpy (Erik Lochtefeld) and most critically, down-on-her-luck actress Ann Darrow (Christiani Pitts).

Christiani Pitts during the Broadway Opening Night Curtain Call for King Kong. Photo / Getty Images

Inheriting the mantle of Fay Wray, Pitts befriends the ape after a harrowing meet-brute on Skull Island, and for the rest of the show, Ann battles with her conscience over the ethics of having acquired cheap fame by helping to trap King Kong and put him on exhibition in New York.

Pitts sings the bulk of the score, by Beetlejuice's Eddie Perfect, along with Marius de Vries and five others.

Pitts' job here is impossible, as the songs vacate consciousness right after the notes are generated.

The music otherwise merely services McOnie's aggressive, thrusting choreography for an ensemble playing the various hunters, sailors and showgirls.

Pitts, meanwhile, is left portraying a thankless second banana - sorry - to a machine.

The mechanics of King Kong often mimic those of a motion picture. Set and projection designer Peter England has overseen the installation of what seems a vast video screen, on which are depicted the backdrops for epic scenes such as the beast's scaling of a Manhattan skyscraper.

These devices, with their immense scale and jolting impact, feel as if they are intended to erase the impression of being at live theatre, not enhance it. They are triumphs of the console, not the rehearsal room.

Make no mistake. King Kong is big and scary, with a fierce set of chompers, overdeveloped shoulders and hands that could crush SUVs. His effect on you is real. The expressive eyes, though, stamp him as more human than anyone else onstage. Ann tells him he looks sad. I'd say, it's more like worried.