Hairspray

The Fox

Given the absolute mania these days for recycling hit movies into Broadway musicals, it’s a little surprising that it took so long for John Waters’ 1988 comedy Hairspray to get the treatment. That good-natured little gem was all about music, dancing and youthful energy with a civil rights message thrown in for good measure; what more could you want?

Of course, modest, unassuming hit films have been turned into bloated Broadway turkeys in the past – think Saturday Night Fever or Big: the Musical. Fortunately the book for Hairspray – by Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan – retains all the warmth and loopy sensibility of Waters’ original script and the songs – by Mark Shaiman and Scott Wittman – offer an appealing homage to the R&B and gospel tunes that Waters admired so much during his youth in Baltimore, without ever descending into simple Grease-style imitation. Add in William Ivey Long’s bright, kitsch-y costumes, David Rockewll’s colorful, Toontown sets, and Jerry Mitchell’s endlessly inventive choreographic tribute to the early 1960s and you have the runaway hit that made even former musical theatre hater John Waters into a self-confessed “show tune queen.”

That cast for this tour is headed by 19-year-old fireball Carly Jibson, making an auspicious professional debut as Tracy Turnblad, the plus-size high-schooler who wants nothing more than “the chance to dance” on the Corny Collins TV show and ends up as an accidental crusader for civil rights. Her voice has that Leslie Gore-girl group quality that’s absolutely right for the period and she does, indeed, dance up a storm.

The role of Tracy’s mom, played by female impersonator Divine in the film, was re-created on Broadway by playwright and actor Harvey Fierstein – thereby guaranteeing that every other Edna Turnblad will be a big, heavy actor with a voice like a foghorn. Writer and comic Bruce Vilanch fills the bill to overflowing in this production. “Timeless to Me”, Edna’s duet with husband Wilbur (St. Louisian Todd Susman in a wonderfully winsome performance), is the funny and sentimental show-stopper it’s intended to be, although I could have done with fewer interruptions for local jokes and references. One or two are funny; a half-dozen start to sound like pandering.

There’s also great work here by Sandra Denise as Tracy’s gawky friend Penny, Austin Miller as teen idol Link Larkin and Susan Cella as the dreadful Velma von Tussle, suffering from a terminal case of “blonde ambition”. As record shop owner Motormouth Maybelle, Charlotte Crossley brings the house down with numbers like “Big, Blonde and Beautiful” and the inspirational “I Know Where I’ve Been” and Terron Brooks shines as the irrepressible Seaweed J. Stubbs.

Joanna Glushak shows great comic talent in multiple roles, including Penny’s racist mom and a sarcastic prison matron; ditto Blake Hammond. Tony Britton Johnson is a brightly egocentric Corny Collins. And let’s hear it for the sass and vocal pyrotechnics of Deidre Lang, Nraca, and Sabrina N. Scherff as the backup group The Dynamites.

The bottom line on Hairspray is that it’s a warm-hearted, cheerful, high-energy show which reminds us that only a generation ago the very idea that black and white kids should be treated equally was regarded as radical at best and un-American at worst - something the right-wing punditocracy would very much like us to forget. It also reminds us that the size of your waistline – or your hair - is less important, in the long run, than the size of your heart.

Hairspray will continue to appeal to our best instincts through March 21st [2004] at the Fox. Call Metrotix at 314-534-111 for ticket information.

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