Editor’s note: Because the national touring production of “Hairspray” runs only from Jan. 9-14, we are re-posting theater critic John Moore’s review from the show’s most recent tour stop. The following was published on March 26, 2004 (note: the actors mentioned in the review below are no longer in the cast appearing this week in Denver).
‘Spray the word: “Hairspray” is a great, big bundle of joy. There’s not enough aerosol in the world that could hold you back from shaking your fanny muscles to one of the best pop musical scores ever written.
The national touring company has come to Denver, and it is so warm-hearted, it is blowing a hole in the ozone layer above the Denver Performing Arts Complex.
Which is not to say “Hairspray” is a perfect musical. The stage adaptation of John Waters’ cult-favorite film concerns a portly 16-year-old girl who turns winning a spot on a local dance show into a quest to segregate Baltimore in 1962.
But “Hairspray” is not as innocuous as it first appears. It is a smart and irreverent comic-book fairy tale with a heart of gold, but that heart beats with the blood of a political satire that is both risqué and occasionally raunchy. So if the tricky tone isn’t exactly right each night out, its incongruous influences might make it tilt either toward impossibly sweet or gratuitously inappropriate.
Opening night at the Buell Theatre featured insanely infectious choreography, a gallery of terrific performances, delightfully creative set pieces and hilarious costuming. I mean,
if you can’t enjoy yourself at this show, you’d have to be, say, Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (and her only because matronly star Bruce Vilanch singled out Colorado’s same-sex marriage castigator for fourth-wall-crumbling ridicule – to the delight of the audience).
Still, because of the indelicate way in which the audience is bludgeoned with double-entendres, you could sense the evening still hanging in the balance right up until the climactic number, “You Can’t Stop the Beat.”
But two beats in, you know why this tune already has won its place among the great finishing songs in Broadway history. This is a heart-pounding celebration that does everything you could ever ask of one song: It ties up every loose end with wit and warmth, it clarifies the messages of the tolerance and racial harmony, and it gets every aforementioned fanny muscle in the house up and moving.
Tracy Turnblad (Carly Jibson) wants badly to dance on the Corny Collins show, but is oblivious to the fact her size eliminates her from consideration before she ever even swivels a hip.
But not only does she win the day, she wins the boy – and in a most a welcome and revolutionary way. The impossibly handsome Link Larkin (Austin Miller) is actually pretty decent for a pretty boy, so he does not require the entire evening to come to the realization that yes, he can love a chubby girl. Rather, Link falls for our heroine almost immediately after seeing her move on the dance floor. When has that ever happened on any stage before?
When “Hairspray” becomes about Tracy and Link against the world, mirrored by the budding interracial romance of their pals Penny (Sandra Denise) and Seaweed (Terron Brooks), “Hairspray” moves into the Hall of Fame.
Not coincidentally, these are the four best performances. Jibson is a great comedian, a physical gymnast and a knockout singer. But she could not succeed without the generous believability of Miller as Link, whose affection for Tracy must – and does – come across as genuine. That Miller is a lithe dancer with a Harry Connick smile and a great voice helps. Brooks is a sensational dancer, and Denise gets the most thunderous laugh of the night during “Without Love,” and I only wish I could reprint the lyric for you here.
Vilanch is playful enough in the crucial gender-bending role of Tracy’s gigantic mother, Edna, which was immortalized by Divine on film. But he never fully loses himself in his character, so you never forget this is a man playing a woman. But he brings down the
house with husband Wilbur (Todd Susman) on “Timeless to Me,” during which the “Hollywood Squares” comedian jokes about everything from Musgrave to Janet Jackson.
I’m not at all a fan of a Colorado stand-up routine busting out in the middle of a
Baltimore-based musical, but the audience simply went wild when Wilbur had his arms around his wife’s chest, and Edna said, “Wilbur, it’s your childhood dream come true – You’re in Colorado, playing with the Rockies!”
A weakness of the touring production is that it has become something of a parody of its Broadway parent, with too many characters delivering lines with exaggerated and knowing naiveté, which the Broadway cast steadfastly avoided. It dilutes the book’s razor-sharp irony and entendres.
Still, “Hairspray” is a terrific time. The score by Marc Shaiman (“South Park”) and Scott Wittman reflects the musical innocence of the era, incorporating Motown, R&B, power-pop, and even an old-fashioned soft-shoe.
“Hairspray” may not change race relations in America, but it already has changed musical theater forever. And like a good layer of aerosol, it has staying power.
