We three queens: Divas of 'Priscilla' take a Broadway road trip

The far from revelatory but irresistibly enjoyable and big-hearted confection "Priscilla" has finally spun its disco jukebox stateside, some 17 years after the international release of its cult source film, a scrappy road movie about three divas trekking through the Australian desert. The Broadway debut of this lip-sync-loving trio — now played by the nicely insecure Will Swenson, the exuberantly amusing Nick Adams and Tony Sheldon, the moral center and surrogate parent of the trio, who has superbly crafted the role of Bernadette since her on-stage Aussie beginnings — comes some five years after the Down Under debut of the most commercially successful Australian theatrical export ever.

The show has changed some since it was in London; most notably, the pleasingly earnest Swenson's character, Tick (aka Mitzi), is now very much at the center of the story, since the journey from Sydney to Alice Springs is not just for a casino show, but also to allow the drag queen Tick to reunite with his sweet young son, a hitherto-repressed product of an earlier life and also a heart-tugging device that allows the show both to have greater emotional stakes and to reinforce its message of tolerance and the importance of all kinds of families. Along the way, Bernadette also finds "A Fine Romance" with a mechanic named Bob (the genial C. David Johnson), a fellow who has been just sitting out in the desert repairing cars and waiting for the right girl to come by on a bus that lights up on cue.

The selection of disco ditties is also different — in something of a reflection of her lack of a U.S. profile, the hits of the Aussie icon Kylie Minogue has been nixed in favor of the song stylings of that shrewd internationalist Madonna. But the likes of "Go West," "I Love the Nightlife" and "Boogie Wonderland" retain the dominance of disco songs that traveled especially well to the U.K. and Oz.

Those who relish the harder edges of the world of drag and transgendered performance — the sexual complexity, the oppression, the ambivalence of self-obfuscation — will likely find the huge Broadway "Priscilla" too mainstreamed and overly worried about wowing and comforting the matinee crowd with one flashy costume after another (although these multifarious creations from Tim Chappel and Lizzy Gardiner are truly eye-popping).

Sheldon, whose rich performance is crucial to this show staying grounded and authentic amid the flirtatious Adams' dazzling tricks and the more familiar (but earnestly acted) quest of Swenson's ambivalent character, does get to remind us all that we are here enjoying choices that come at considerable personal cost to those who make them. The show could hit that note a little harder; it certainly has the entertain-'em-at-all-costs imperative licked.

Overall, the likable gals get little sand in their faces as they vanquish their desert foes -- empty gas tanks, intolerant outback rubes. In fact, the tension stutters from the way the most intense conflicts in the piece are front-loaded, making the final push home feel protracted. Like a lot of musicals made from movies, especially those that involve road trips, "Priscilla" suffers from too many short scenes in the second act, forcing the piece into repetitive devices, when we could use more extended drama and maybe an extra weighty 11 o'clock ballad for one or more of these gals to hit out of the desert.

But "Priscilla" has a pulsing theatrical heart and soul, not least because its characters are inveterate creatures of the stage. As directed by Simon Phillips, who has been on this bus for years, the tone is warm and inclusive. "Priscilla" has a rich dynasty of queens, unfazed by any desert and very much at home on Broadway.