Fifteen years following his death, Michael Jackson’s legacy remains firmly fixed for his unique talents — at music and dance, plus, for his outsize, elfin and otherworldly personality — and what he ultimately was not so good at — real life, culminating with dark accusations of pedophilia and ultimately his fatal pharmaceutical drug use.
“MJ” the mega-jukebox musical now at Costa Mesa’s Segerstrom Center for a 16-performance run, is less complete biography than celebratory showcase for those extremely wonderful skills minus the starker unpleasantries.
Set in 1992 at a rehearsal studio in Los Angeles, as Jackson prepares for the 15-month, three-continent Dangerous tour, “MJ’s” timeframe conveniently precedes the years when the most troubling idiosyncrasies began to dwarf Jackson’s undisputed reign as the King of Pop.
As a result, this 2 ½ hour show, which includes 40 songs, pyrotechnic flourishes and the highest caliber of Broadway show dancing, entertains in its peak moments at a galvanizing level.
An example: frenzied excitement shrieked from the farthest reaches of the hall simply at the sight of Jackson slowly and oh-so-temptingly holding up a glittery glove, the opening night crowd electric in anticipating the first thumpy bass line notes for “Billie Jean.”
Structurally, the sources for the show itself are considerable, being book writer Lynn Nottage and choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, who also directs.
Under the Estate of Michael Jackson, the source material for “MJ” dare not stray past 1992.
Instead, Pulitzer Prize-winner Nottage sculpts a narrative that effectively toggles back and forth to the beginning’s backstory of the musically rich family from hard-scrabble Gary, Ind.
Under the merciless eye of martinet father Joseph Jackson — played by a marvelously sinister and intimidating Devin Bowles, who also doubles as Jackson’s downtrodden tour stage manager — Michael and his brothers are outfitted with professional and monetary ambition and pop music performance discipline. In Michael’s case, it is literally beaten into him.
There are short performance montages with The Jackson 5’s earliest Motown hits “ABC” and “I’ll Be There” on joyous display (even earlier: the unlikely sight and sound of the wee-est of the three actors who play Michael at different stages in his life — young Bane Griffith in Tuesday’s performance — delivering a snippet of “Climb Ev’ry Mountain”).
Nottage’s less successful expositional device, however, is layering in a snoopy MTV host (Mary Kate Moore), along with her gaga Jackson fanboy camera man (Da’Von T. Moody) to lurk around the rehearsal set.
Peppering Jackson with personal questions, as a storytelling device with Michael revealing his loopy inner nature, bogs down the show’s pacing in the second act.
Beyond its glittering wealth of songs, “MJ” gets an unreserved rave for its dances and dancing. One would hope that casting an adult Michael who can dance is paramount — more about Jamaal Fields-Green, Tuesday night’s “MJ,” below — but the stellar ensemble is an MVP collective.
Wheeldon won a Tony for choreographing this show and, boy, does that show! Wheeldon comes from the nuanced precision of ballet, fashioning captivating storytelling dance throughout his career. He had a career-shifting breakthrough to Broadway with 2015’s dazzling “An American in Paris.”
Physical movement drives this musical, and it does so organically and extremely well. In many of the rehearsal scenes, a half dozen or more supporting figures in the background will break into steps or glide into positions in casual ways, and we unconsciously and happily register a world here filled with by the most lithe and graceful skilled bodies.
Beyond that are some awesome set pieces, individual scenes and numbers.
For instance, “Thriller,” when it comes in a stunning visual display of ghoulish red lighting and effects, is magnificently choreographed, mirroring the famous 1983 zombie-slouch video.
But here it is even better live. It also comes with a surprise as Wheeldon reveals the real monster who has been haunting Michael all along (sorry, you gotta see it to find out).
Perhaps the purest dance joy in the show isn’t one of Jackson’s trademark solos, but comes at the end of the first act, during a press conference ensemble number that is a wonderful weave of two of Jackson’s lesser titles, “They Don’t Care About Us” and “Earth Song.”
The craven press corps are dressed in black capes — they lurk and sway like an oversized mob of crows pecking away at Jackson, cawing frivolous questions about the hyperbaric oxygen tanks he sleeps in or “Elephant Man” bones.
Their tight dance moves and upward arm thrusts make the pack menacing as it surrounds the star in an organized swirl. A mesmerizing scene.
The touring version stars Roman Banks as MJ, but Tuesday night the designated alternate, Fields-Green, was in the lead role.
Fields-Green’s singing voice — spot on “hee-hees” — is everything we hope it will be in the ballads and the biggest hits, plus his effective acting captures the real Michael’s eternal wide-eyed wonderment.
His dancing is a mixed bag, though. Slightly bulkier and thicker than the original, Fields-Green has many of the deliberate moves down, hitting the side-slides where Jackson’s feet never leave the ground, the showstopping Moonwalk and, heaven help us, those eternal crotch grabs.
But during the faster-paced steps the actor doesn’t consistently channel the abrupt and fluid stop-and-start speed movements that seemed breathtaking in the 1980s (in fairness, who else does?).
Brandon Lee Harris, who plays the third, young adult Michael during the “Off the Wall/Thriller” era, is accomplished as peak popularity period Michael.
A vocal and performance high point comes when Harris and Fields-Green combine to perform an ultra-infectious “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’.”
Ultimately, the triumph — though with a small “t” for its intentional lack of truth-telling in telling us an incomplete tale of Michael Jackson — of MJ is music, dance and performance.
After all, ultimately, those elements are maybe what we crave most in a musical?
‘MJ The Musical’
Rating: 3 stars (out of a possible four).
When: Through March 31; 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays; 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturdays; 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sundays.
Where: Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa
Tickets: $49-$179
Information: 949-556-2787; scfta.org