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HAIRSPRAY LIVE (2016)
NBC and FOX continue to compete in this interesting new trend of bringing Broadway musicals to television. Unfortunately, NBC's latest offering of Hairspray provided lackluster results. This mounting of the Broadway musical has some good things going for it; however, suffers due to an overly preachy re-hauling of the original libretto, some questionable casting choices, lackadaisical direction, and some production issues that could have easily been handled with more efficiency.
The property originally came to the screen as a 1988 comedy drama from demented filmmaker John Waters featuring two of Waters' greatest discoveries: transvestite Divine and Ricki Lake. The piece was turned into a smash Broadway musical that premiered in 2002 and ran for over 2600 performances and a film version of the musical hit theaters in 2007.
It is 1960's Baltimore where we meet Tracy Turnblad, an overweight teenager who dreams of being a dancer on THE CORNY COLLINS SHOW, an "American Bandstand" type dance show produced by the bitchy and bigoted Velma Von Tussle and featuring her equally nasty daughter Amber as one of the dancers. Once a month the show features what is known as "Negro Day", where they play music exclusively by black artists and only feature black dancers. Tracy and her best friend Penny get a chance to audition for the show and Tracy actually gets cast on the show and her innocent remark that she wishes every day on the show was Negro day makes her a somewhat unwilling spokesperson for racial equality, hampering her budding romance with Link Larkin, a dancer on the show who is involved with Amber but Tracy and every other Baltimore teenage girl is crushing on.
This story raised eyebrows because the role of Edna Turnblad was originally played by a transvestite and the role has traditionally been played by a man. When the movie became a Broadway musical, Harvey Fierstein played the role of Edna and John Travolta inherited the role in the film version of the musical. I have to admit I was impressed by the fact that for the first time since these live musicals started being produced, an actor was allowed to reprise the role they created on Broadway. Fierstein was allowed to recreate his Broadway role as Edna and also wrote the screenplay for this production and, if the truth be told, I wish he had just been allowed to concentrate on his performance because one of the things that I liked about the 2007 film version is that the message regarding racial equality was not driven home with a sledgehammer, but Fierstein brought out the sladgehammer big time here, having Tracy announce every ten minutes that she wants "everyone to dance together." I think his duties as writer affected his performance as well, which just seemed kind of phoned in to me.
There is some strong casting going on here though...Maddie Baillio lights up the screen as Tracy and her rich vocals were one of the true pleasures of this production. Derek Hough was surprisingly slick as Corny Collins and I loved Dove Cameron as Amber, who made the most of a number written especially for this production called "She's Got Cooties." Ariana Grande was fun as Penny and Garrett Clayton's resemblance to Zac Efron didn't hurt his performance as Link. Martin Short was acceptable as Tracy's dad, though he seemed to be slipping into Ed Grimley every now and then. I have to admit to being a little disappointed with Kristen Chenoweth as Velma Von Tussle, the villain of the piece...Chenoweth is a powerhouse vocalist but she doesn't bring the bitchiness the role requires, but Jennifer Hudson made a great Motormouth Maybelle and Ephraim Sykes made every moment he had onscreen count as her son, Seaweed, who falls for Penny.
The score by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman came here mostly intact, including "Good Morning Baltimore", "Miss Baltimore Crabs", "I Hear the Bells", "Ladies Choice", "Without Love", "You're Timeless to Me", and "You Can't Stop the Beat"; unfortunately, the huge orchestra overpowers a lot of the singers making it hard to catch a lot of lyrics. Kenny Leons direction is a little too leisurely to the point that when the story stops singing and dancing, it stops becoming interesting and with the exception of "Run and Tell Dat", the choreography is surprisingly pedestrian. This production definitely deserves an "A" for effort, but parts were definitely better than the whole.
NBC and FOX continue to compete in this interesting new trend of bringing Broadway musicals to television. Unfortunately, NBC's latest offering of Hairspray provided lackluster results. This mounting of the Broadway musical has some good things going for it; however, suffers due to an overly preachy re-hauling of the original libretto, some questionable casting choices, lackadaisical direction, and some production issues that could have easily been handled with more efficiency.
The property originally came to the screen as a 1988 comedy drama from demented filmmaker John Waters featuring two of Waters' greatest discoveries: transvestite Divine and Ricki Lake. The piece was turned into a smash Broadway musical that premiered in 2002 and ran for over 2600 performances and a film version of the musical hit theaters in 2007.
It is 1960's Baltimore where we meet Tracy Turnblad, an overweight teenager who dreams of being a dancer on THE CORNY COLLINS SHOW, an "American Bandstand" type dance show produced by the bitchy and bigoted Velma Von Tussle and featuring her equally nasty daughter Amber as one of the dancers. Once a month the show features what is known as "Negro Day", where they play music exclusively by black artists and only feature black dancers. Tracy and her best friend Penny get a chance to audition for the show and Tracy actually gets cast on the show and her innocent remark that she wishes every day on the show was Negro day makes her a somewhat unwilling spokesperson for racial equality, hampering her budding romance with Link Larkin, a dancer on the show who is involved with Amber but Tracy and every other Baltimore teenage girl is crushing on.
This story raised eyebrows because the role of Edna Turnblad was originally played by a transvestite and the role has traditionally been played by a man. When the movie became a Broadway musical, Harvey Fierstein played the role of Edna and John Travolta inherited the role in the film version of the musical. I have to admit I was impressed by the fact that for the first time since these live musicals started being produced, an actor was allowed to reprise the role they created on Broadway. Fierstein was allowed to recreate his Broadway role as Edna and also wrote the screenplay for this production and, if the truth be told, I wish he had just been allowed to concentrate on his performance because one of the things that I liked about the 2007 film version is that the message regarding racial equality was not driven home with a sledgehammer, but Fierstein brought out the sladgehammer big time here, having Tracy announce every ten minutes that she wants "everyone to dance together." I think his duties as writer affected his performance as well, which just seemed kind of phoned in to me.
There is some strong casting going on here though...Maddie Baillio lights up the screen as Tracy and her rich vocals were one of the true pleasures of this production. Derek Hough was surprisingly slick as Corny Collins and I loved Dove Cameron as Amber, who made the most of a number written especially for this production called "She's Got Cooties." Ariana Grande was fun as Penny and Garrett Clayton's resemblance to Zac Efron didn't hurt his performance as Link. Martin Short was acceptable as Tracy's dad, though he seemed to be slipping into Ed Grimley every now and then. I have to admit to being a little disappointed with Kristen Chenoweth as Velma Von Tussle, the villain of the piece...Chenoweth is a powerhouse vocalist but she doesn't bring the bitchiness the role requires, but Jennifer Hudson made a great Motormouth Maybelle and Ephraim Sykes made every moment he had onscreen count as her son, Seaweed, who falls for Penny.
The score by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman came here mostly intact, including "Good Morning Baltimore", "Miss Baltimore Crabs", "I Hear the Bells", "Ladies Choice", "Without Love", "You're Timeless to Me", and "You Can't Stop the Beat"; unfortunately, the huge orchestra overpowers a lot of the singers making it hard to catch a lot of lyrics. Kenny Leons direction is a little too leisurely to the point that when the story stops singing and dancing, it stops becoming interesting and with the exception of "Run and Tell Dat", the choreography is surprisingly pedestrian. This production definitely deserves an "A" for effort, but parts were definitely better than the whole.