“Hairspray”

Posted by Gail M. Burns - October 2010

Big Hair! Big Talent! Big Dancing! Big Fun!!!!

AND…Jim Charles in a dress!

Who could ask for anything more??

As Tracy Turnblad, the irresistible Meg Doherty, literally can’t stand still. Her Tracy is alive and raring to go from the top of her e-nor-mous bouffant to the tips of her toes. There is no doubt that nothing is going to stop this girl and that Link Larkin (Ryan Crimmins) is a damned lucky guy to get her. The only thing bigger than Doherty’s wigs is her voice, which powers its way over the Cohoes Music Hall Orchestra and the effervescent chorus to greet the new day in Baltimore, circa 1962.

As Doherty’s Tracy is bursting with the eternal optimism and energy of youth, Charles plays her mother, Edna, as woman thoroughly depressed and repressed by a society that has judged her and found her lacking. Her make-over moment at Mister Pinky’s Hefty Hideaway (Quality Clothes for Quantity Gals), where she goes from a housecoat and scuffs to golden glamor, is absolutely breathtaking – Charles was just radiantly beautiful in that moment and the audience went wild. But interestingly, Edna doesn’t. Charles plays her as a dainty, modest, and feminine soul not given to making a spectacle of herself, which is a very interesting choice. It does two things – it graciously gives the star spotlight to Doherty, and it keeps firmly before the audience the reality that Edna is a woman, not a man in drag.

(Time for Gail’s Famous Pop Quiz That Stumps Them Every Time: Two performers have won Tony awards for playing characters of the opposite gender. The second was Harvey Fierstein for Hairspray. Who was the first? No fair answering if you’ve read the answer in a previous review!)

This is a show in which women rule the roost. Both Edna’s husband and Tracy’s dad, Wilbur (Bill Douglas), and Tracy’s soulmate Link are played as physically smaller and weaker than their mates. While Wilbur is every bit as wily and uninhibited as his daughter, Link has quite a bit of growing up to do during the course of the show, and Crimmins literally gets, as my companion noted, “cuter and cuter” as Link moves from a shallow, self-absorbed teen to a loving and equal partner for Tracy.

I promised myself that I would keep politics out of this review, but I realize that its impossible. In Hairspray creators Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan (book) and Scott Witman and Marc Shaiman (music and lyrics) have taken Mary Poppins’ adage that “a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down” to its extreme. The pile of tantalizing treats their use to lure you in is in equal proportion to the heap of political messages about basic human dignity and rights they conceal beneath them. Hairspray has a LOT to say about American culture – in 1962 and right now – and that is impossible to ignore.

In keeping with the time period in which it is set, the civil rights issue on the top of the heap is racial equality – which means there are lots of wonderful roles for talented black performers – but Hairspray is truly an equal opportunity musical, with plum parts for fat chicks, short balding guys, and men who look great in dresses – as well as your run of the mill skinny white folks. Watching all those talented people celebrating their diversity while dancing and singing up a storm is the central joy of this show.

The three central love stories in this show – Edna and Wilbur, Tracy and Link, and Penny (Chloe Golden) and Seaweed (Cory Washington) – are each sweet and romantic, but also thoroughly unconventional and daring. Each couple dares to love outside their “own kind” and each romance is depicted as natural and beautiful, although, as Seaweed’s mama, Motormouth Maybelle (Cynthia Thomas) warns the interracial couple: “You’ve got a whole lot of ugly coming at you…”

But in the happy musical comedy world of Hairspray we never see that “ugly.” The ugliest things get is when Velma Von Tussle (Amy Neilson) sings about the good old days when she reigned as Miss Baltimore Crabs. Much as I enjoyed 95% of Shana Golderberger’s costume designs, Velma didn’t look nearly slutty or bitchy or crab-ridden enough. And Neilsen’s performance also failed to reach those pinnacles of sleaze. She looked, and sounded, almost classy, which in this case is not only wrong, but boring. I think a good pointy torpedo bra would have made her look pricklier.

Emilia Senn has just enough edge to her squeaky clean blonde cheerleader looks and her performance to make Velma’s daughter, Amber, a suitable villain and foil for our heroines Tracy and Penny. Golden is hilarious and adorable as the loyal and dim-witted Penny, and Washington is handsome and suave as her “black white knight.” In this musical never-land everyone can dance, but no one dances more sublimely than Seaweed. Washington has the moves – “catlike,” as Penny’s mother immediately surmises – to make a girl’s heart melt.

Thomas gets all the serious songs, and she sings them with panache. I hope to see lots more of young Arielle King, who plays Seaweed’s sister Little Inez with sincerity and an impressive set of pipes for a 7th grader. As the girl-group the Dynamites, who help welcome Edna to the ‘60’s and Mister Pinky’s, Joyel Kaleel, Amanda Serrano and Krystal-Rose Surgick live up to their name by literally exploding on stage with powerful vocal talent. I wish the creators had featured the Dynamites prominently in many more numbers, but since they didn’t how about having these talented ladies return to play Crystal, Chiffon, and Ronnette in Little Shop of Horrors next season? They could wear some of the same costumes and wigs…

In a series of minor roles Kay Koch (Penny’s mom, the gym teacher, and the prison matron) and Kris Anderson (Harrison Spritzer, Mister Pinky, and the prison guard) prove themselves versatile and talented comedians.

This production proves a stellar Cohoes debut for director and choreographer Michael Susko, who keeps everyone and everything on stage moving, including Jen Price Fick’s nifty little set pieces which manage to suggest a variety of locales without cluttering up the tiny Cohoes stage (gotta leave room for more great dancing!) The sets, combined with Matthew J. Fick’s lighting design and Golderberger’s costumes create a riot of color and movement all by themselves, adding to Susko break-neck pace for the proceedings.

As a quantity gal, I appreciated that neither Doherty, Charles, nor Thomas’ performances, or Goldberger’s costumes for them, reinforced the stereotype of large women as garish, overinflated Macy’s parade floats. Their outfits, along with Kimberly Stone’s wigs and make-up were over-the-top fabulous and flamboyant, but not unflattering or cartoonish. I promised myself I would not write about the politics of size in this review, but I just wanted to say that I appreciated the power statement Goldberger and Thomas were willing to make with Maybelle’s finale costume. It is exceedingly liberating to see a woman of size strut her stuff. Whoo hoo!

This production is just so darned much fun from beginning to end that I encourage you to strap on your dancing shoes (even while seated your toes will be tapping!) and pack up the whole family and go! Since you get just as much show for half the ticket price of the Broadway tours that rumble through the region, you can bring twice as many friends and relations along with you, or go twice as often, right?

C-R Productions’ Hairspray runs October 7-24 at the Cohoes Music Hall, 58 Remsen Street, Cohoes, NY. Performances are scheduled Thursday-Saturday at 8 p.m.; Saturday & Sunday at 3 p.m. The show runs about two hours and fifteen minutes with one intermission and is suitable for the whole family. Tickets are $35-$25. Call the Box Office at 518.237.5858 or buy tickets online at www.cohoesmusichall.com

Pop Quiz Answer: Mary Martin for the title role in “Peter Pan.”

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