HAIRSPRAY DELIGHTS WITH HUMOUR AND HEART
As the Broadway Across Canada touring production proves in aces, the musical Hairspray has genuine staying power.
Cult film director John Waters wrote this story of acceptance, not only of oneself but of others, back in 1988. It was always a small story with a big heroine, a big heart and big hair, which got much bigger when it was turned into a Broadway musical in 2003.
Jack O'brien's original direction, recreated for the tour by Matt Lenz, allows the actors to push the envelope without ever becoming as cartoonish as David Rockwell's clever set pieces, and William Ivey Long's costumes are bright, bold and, when necessary, downright dazzling.
Jerry Mitchell's choreography, recreated by Robbie Roby, is a consistent showstopper. Almost every song turns into a production number with the talented, energetic, tireless ensemble dancing up a storm. All the funky dance moves are pure nostalgia. The closing number, You Can't Stop the Beat, is certainly the show's most infectious tune.
Hairspray is the story of Tracy Turnblad (Caroline Eiseman), an overweight Baltimore teen who dreams of dancing on the popular Corny Collins TV show with all the `nicest kids in town', which really translates as the elitist kids in town. The show is produced by the bigoted Velma Von Tussell (Emmanuelle Zeesman), a former Baltimore beauty queen, as a venue to help her daughter Amber (Caroline Portner) win the title of Miss Teenage Hairspray. The show is also a bastion of segregation, which Tracy is determined to change when she does become a cast member.
Tracy is a real crackerjack of a character, always on the verge of exploding, and Eiseman easily wins over the audience with her volcanic performance. She can shimmy, wiggle and jump with as much electricity as she can belt such tunes as Good Morning Baltimore and Mama, I'm a Big Girl Now, but it's her rendition of I Can Hear the Bells, when the teen heartthrob Link Larson (Skyler Shields) accidentally touches her that Eiseman's comedic skills shine.
It's tradition to have the role of Tracy's overweight, underappreciated, overly anxious mother Edna Turnblad played by a man, and it's Greg Kalafatas' virtuoso performance that gives this Hairspray so much heart and humour. Kalafatas never winks at the audience to remind them he's a man in drag. Instead, he just becomes a woman who needs to rediscover her outer and inner beauty. He knows when to use his lower range for maximum effect both in singing and speaking. The duet, Timeless to Me, with Ralph Prentice Daniel who plays Tracy's father Wilbur, is simultaneously hilarious and winsome. Daniel gives Wilbur a vaudevillian persona.
The show's most powerful song, the anthem I Know Where I've Been, is sung by Deidre Lang as Motormouth Maybelle, the owner of the town's Black record shop, and it is the showstopper Hairspray's composers Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman dreamed it would be.
As Maybelle's son Seaweed, Josiah Rogers steals every scene he's in because the man can move with as much agility as he can belt a song.
It's so much fun watching Tracy's nerdish friend Penny (Scarlett Jacques) swoon over Seaweed, and it's Jacques, not Eiseman, who gets the famous sexy Grease makeover in Hairspray because of Seaweed's ability to see Penny's potential.
Zeesman and Portner have great fun playing the mother and daughter villains as a tradition of mean girls who become meaner women.
Shields juggles the sexiness of heartthrob Link Larson with the boy's naiveté which makes his duets with Tracy, It Takes Two and Without Love, more sweet than silly or saccharine.
A '60s musical would not be complete without a nod to Motown, which is supplied by Ashia Collins, Leiah Lewis and Kynnedi Moryae Porter as The Dynamites and they certainly live up to their moniker.
All the songs work well in the musical, but they are not memorable enough to live outside it. The story and its themes are simple and obvious, so it's remarkable how much hold Hairspray can have over an audience for 150 minutes even after 15 years.