‘The Tattooed Lady’ is a carnival that needs some reworking

The opening number of The Tattooed Lady, the Philadelphia Theatre Company’s intriguing but unsatisfying world-premiere musical, sets the mood and challenges the audience. “So feral, so perverse, oddest lady in the whole universe,” sings an ensemble of tattooed ladies in glittering sequins and rhinestones. “We’ll give you what you crave…Dazzling and depraved.”

Then we’re thrust abruptly into the life of an anti-depravity crusader, Ida Gibson (Jackie Hoffman, from Only Murders in the Building). Gibson — in Hoffman’s entertaining portrayal, more funny than frightening — is on a tear to remove artwork she deems pornographic from the local library. The year is 1980, the Ronald Reagan era, and Gibson, who lives with her granddaughter, Joy (Maya Lagerstam), embodies its conservatism and conformity. “We’re stuck in the circus,” they sing, with heavy irony, “and the freaks are parading around.”

It turns out that Gibson has her own buried, freakish past whose onetime pleasures eventually gave way to pain. And the unsubtly named Joy has a secret or two of her own.

That’s the story — the cartoonish book is by Erin Courtney and Max Vernon, while Vernon wrote the music, lyrics, and orchestrations — in a nutshell. Vernon, whose show KPOP opens on Broadway later this month, has penned some soulful melodies, and the eclectic score evokes both the jazz turns of Chicago and the in-your-face rock bravado of Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

But The Tattooed Lady, co-developed and directed by Ellie Heyman, is formally ragged — an intermittently lively revue encased in the carapace of a book musical, especially in the first act.

That’s when we get a cavalcade of tattooed ladies, culled from history and imagination, enacting their backstories in a series of vignettes and songs. Standouts include Katie Thompson’s Nora Hildebrandt, a powerful German pathbreaker, and Kim Blanck’s nightmare-plagued Maud Wagner, excelling in a haunting song-and-dance duet with a skeleton man representing death.

Commissioned five years ago by Paige Price, then-PTC’s producing artistic director and now the show’s creative producer, The Tattooed Lady operates on two levels. It pays tribute to the subculture of tattooed ladies, depicted here as feminist pioneers. And it offers a metaphorical brief for artistic self-expression, female agency, and self-acceptance, particularly by anyone who’s ever felt like an outsider or freak. “We’re all a little odd, and that’s a gift from God,” Imagena, Gibson’s younger self, sings.

It’s an affecting message. But the show’s dramaturgy is strained at times. Gibson’s staid existence is interrupted when the aging emcee of the Bizarre Bazaar (Anthony Lawton, masterful in the role) appears with her old sideshow trunk. In a little stage magic, figures from the history of tattooed ladies emerge — visible to Gibson, who once emblazoned their images on her flesh, but not, initially, to her befuddled granddaughter.

After the ladies strut their stuff, the second act fills in more of Gibson’s story, with Ashley Pérez Flanagan (looking nothing like Gibson) appearing as Imagena. She marries a tattoo artist named Eddie (Anastacia McCleskey), joins the carnival, and runs into both the Great Depression and personal tragedy. Only the magical reappearance of the past can help Gibson relocate her former exuberance, expressed in a climactic duet with her granddaughter.

There is rich content in The Tattooed Lady. Vernon is a talented songwriter, and Lex Liang’s costumes are imaginatively fulfilling. Less so Liang’s set design, with a realistic house backdrop that should disappear when the show’s fantastical reenactments unspool.

As a book musical, the enterprise needs some re-tooling to make Gibson’s journey land with the emotional impact its creators intend. Or maybe the show should simply embrace its strengths and morph into a revue, capped by a present-day enthusiast of the tattoo tradition.

“The Tattooed Lady” is presented by the Philadelphia Theatre Company at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre, 480 S. Broad St., through Nov. 20. Tickets: $35-$74. Information: www.philatheatreco.org or 215-985-0420.