As that mélange suggests, the show arrives during a particularly confusing time for beauty discourse. Thanks in part to Ozempic, thin is back in, with once-plus-size celebrities sporting svelter physiques, and some already-slim stars now verging on gaunt. The drug itself has become a metonym for the increasing malleability of our appearances, which can be altered via operations, injections, or digital filters—all more normalized than ever before. (Murphy, who made his name in the early two-thousands with “Nip/Tuck,” a black comedy set at a plastic-surgery center, was perhaps ahead of the curve.) The regressive swing away from body positivity has been much discussed, but there’s no consensus on how to discuss it. Hollywood, which may be ceding its ability to set beauty standards to social media, has responded to the morass with lazy morality tales, like the 2024 movie “The Substance.” That same year, the cult classic “Death Becomes Her”—another story of eternal youth secured at a cost—was adapted for Broadway. Both films are winked at in “The Beauty,” which, like so many of Murphy’s shows, is pastiche held together by proud vulgarity and a sadistic streak.journey-inline-newsletterinline-newsletter