Hairspray

It’s not often that you find yourself part of an audience that is so totally into a show as the audience for Hairspray.  It’s immersive.  It’s their show and they seem to know it backwards.  Almost every song and every artist are greeted with applause and roars of anticipatory approval.  

This is ‘the original [2002] Broadway version’, but the lead cast are all Australian.  Amongst whom the standout is, of course, Shane Jacobson, who transforms, who is unrecognisable as Edna Turnblad, our heroine’s Mom, shy, overweight, self-conscious, good-hearted, naïve.  We know Jacobson can sing – but as Edna?  It’s a beautifully controlled, sustained performance. When Edna encounters nasty Velma (Rhonda Burchmore) and her equally nasty daughter Amber (Brianna Bishop), the meanest Edna can be is to remark, ‘I don’t care for them.’ But when Edna realises at the start her ‘pleasantly plump’ daughter’s ambition to dance on television, she has a key thematic line, ‘They don’t have people like us on television – except to laugh at.’  The show proves that is not necessarily so.

Jacobson’s interactions with Todd McKenny’s Wilbur, especially their dance number, ‘You’re Timeless to Me’, are both funny and touching, the two of them clearly sparking off each other and having a wonderful time.  Very talented Carmel Rodrigues, making her professional music theatre debut, is an immensely sweet, irrepressibleTracy.  Mackenzie Dunn as Penny, Tracy’s BFF, is a superb comedienne and her scenes with Javon King as Seaweed threaten to steal the show.

It’s a show that is unfailingly exuberant, energetic, bouncy, romantic, poignant, pacey, and unstoppable.  The ensemble are all impossibly attractive. The villains – snobs and racists – are obviously hateful and our heroes are sweetly good. The show seamlessly blends its ‘message’ (acceptance of all body shapes and sizes, and racial integration) with smart songs, nostalgic tunes, terrific dance numbers, a simple plot, and an absurdly optimistic fairy tale ending.  These crucial elements are put together and presented with such heart and skill that they just work.  (The original 2002 version ran on Broadway for nearly 3000 performances and then over 1000 in London’s West End.)

Set in Baltimore in 1962, the production goes all out on 1960s styles – in extravagant design, colours, wardrobe, songs, dances, and, of course, those hairstyles that need all that hairspray.  Even the archway above the stage is curved like a 1960s TV screen.  Curiously, for the younger audience, demonstrably having such a great time, those ‘60s things were in vogue before they were born.  So what? 

The show’s origin is John Waters’ subversive, campy 1988 movie with drag queen Divine as Edna Turnblad.  The drag element remains unchanged, but the campier notes are toned down.  In 2002 the movie is adapted with many tweaks and plot changes into a musical stage play – and that becomes the movie musical in 2007 with John Travolta as Edna.  But Hairspray has gone through more changes since then, for instance dialogue and plot changes to remove the ‘white saviour’ (Tracy) element and make Motormouth Maybelle (the fabulous Asabi Goodman) the undefeated leader with her big number ‘I Know Where I’ve Been’.

Music theatre – and American music theatre in particular – may not be your thing, but with this much talent, oomph and pizzaz on stage, you may be converted.

Michael Brindley

Photographer: Jeff Busby