#1
Posted: 4/24/08 at 3:40pm
Link is not available, so here is text until I can provide a link from Newsday.
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Spoof hits the high Waters mark
Friday, April 25, 2008
By LINDA WINER
Just how many high-school spoofs about the ‘50s can pop culture embrace?
The surprising answer to that question is…oh, all right, one more. “Cry-Baby,” which opened last night at the Marquis Theatre, is pleasantly demented and – deep in the sweet darkness of its loopy heart – more true to the cheerful subversion of a John Waters movie than its sentimental big sister “Hairspray.”
This is not to suggest that this amiable show will likely compete with “Hairspray” for the big-ticket audience. For starters, it is based on a lesser Waters movie, which, despite Johnny Depp as the bad-boy hero, was a dimwitted 1990 takeoff on every ‘50s takeoff from “Grease” through “Happy Days” and beyond.
But the new musical, directed by Mark Brokaw and exuberantly choreographed by Rob Ashford, is confident – no, proud – of its simple bad taste / good values ancestry. The class-warfare book, by “Hairspray” adapters Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan, keeps importance and sincerity to a delightful minimum.
And the word-smart score – by newcomers David Javerbaum (executive producer of “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart”) and Adam Schlesinger (power-pop band Fountains of Wayne) – is a twisted dopey-like-a-fox combination of eight-bar ‘50s rockabilly for the wild kids and harmonized Eisenhower-kitsch for the right squares.
The good cast throws itself happily into the peppy, vulgar, deadpan foolishness of the style. If Depp put Cry-Baby, the rocker-rebel orphan, on the tender side of Elvis and James Dean, James Snyder goes for the irony of Charlie Sheen playing The Fonz. Elizabeth Stanley, as Allison, the good girl who wants to be bad, brings an endearing dorky underbelly to the cliché of the wholesome blonde with the wailing belt.
The thoroughly original performance come from Alli Mauzey as lovesick Leonora – not just Cry-Baby’s needy hanger-on, but a genuine nutcase, a delusional stalker with a dangerous look in the corner of her weird eyes. When she sings “Screw Loose,” a homage to Patsy Cline and all love’s crazy girls, we swear we can hear screws rattle.
Harriet Harris, who won her Tony Award for Brokaw’s production of “Thoroughly Modern Mille,” players Allison’s snob-with-a-conscience grandmother with the blasé dazzle of Eve Arden on uppers.
Scott Pask’s scenery, with set pieces that roll in and fly down, take us with deceptive effortlessness from the Baltimore country club to the gang’s heavy-petting quarry to prison. Catherine Zuber’s grossly appropriate costumes appreciate that ‘50s style was a lot more than poodle skirts.
Even the most ludicrous moments – iron-lung jokes, anyone? – move with fast-thinking flair in Ashford’s choreography, which pushes libidos and muscles against square geometrics and culminates in a furious but funny prison tap for seriously impressive male dancers.
Elevating the brain-numbing intentions of the form are such delirious lyrics as “girl, can I kiss you with tongue?” and a happy tribute to the early rock romance with “misery, agony, helplessness, hopelessness, heartache and woe.” It’s pretty stupid, yes, but with brains.
-------
Spoof hits the high Waters mark
Friday, April 25, 2008
By LINDA WINER
Just how many high-school spoofs about the ‘50s can pop culture embrace?
The surprising answer to that question is…oh, all right, one more. “Cry-Baby,” which opened last night at the Marquis Theatre, is pleasantly demented and – deep in the sweet darkness of its loopy heart – more true to the cheerful subversion of a John Waters movie than its sentimental big sister “Hairspray.”
This is not to suggest that this amiable show will likely compete with “Hairspray” for the big-ticket audience. For starters, it is based on a lesser Waters movie, which, despite Johnny Depp as the bad-boy hero, was a dimwitted 1990 takeoff on every ‘50s takeoff from “Grease” through “Happy Days” and beyond.
But the new musical, directed by Mark Brokaw and exuberantly choreographed by Rob Ashford, is confident – no, proud – of its simple bad taste / good values ancestry. The class-warfare book, by “Hairspray” adapters Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan, keeps importance and sincerity to a delightful minimum.
And the word-smart score – by newcomers David Javerbaum (executive producer of “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart”) and Adam Schlesinger (power-pop band Fountains of Wayne) – is a twisted dopey-like-a-fox combination of eight-bar ‘50s rockabilly for the wild kids and harmonized Eisenhower-kitsch for the right squares.
The good cast throws itself happily into the peppy, vulgar, deadpan foolishness of the style. If Depp put Cry-Baby, the rocker-rebel orphan, on the tender side of Elvis and James Dean, James Snyder goes for the irony of Charlie Sheen playing The Fonz. Elizabeth Stanley, as Allison, the good girl who wants to be bad, brings an endearing dorky underbelly to the cliché of the wholesome blonde with the wailing belt.
The thoroughly original performance come from Alli Mauzey as lovesick Leonora – not just Cry-Baby’s needy hanger-on, but a genuine nutcase, a delusional stalker with a dangerous look in the corner of her weird eyes. When she sings “Screw Loose,” a homage to Patsy Cline and all love’s crazy girls, we swear we can hear screws rattle.
Harriet Harris, who won her Tony Award for Brokaw’s production of “Thoroughly Modern Mille,” players Allison’s snob-with-a-conscience grandmother with the blasé dazzle of Eve Arden on uppers.
Scott Pask’s scenery, with set pieces that roll in and fly down, take us with deceptive effortlessness from the Baltimore country club to the gang’s heavy-petting quarry to prison. Catherine Zuber’s grossly appropriate costumes appreciate that ‘50s style was a lot more than poodle skirts.
Even the most ludicrous moments – iron-lung jokes, anyone? – move with fast-thinking flair in Ashford’s choreography, which pushes libidos and muscles against square geometrics and culminates in a furious but funny prison tap for seriously impressive male dancers.
Elevating the brain-numbing intentions of the form are such delirious lyrics as “girl, can I kiss you with tongue?” and a happy tribute to the early rock romance with “misery, agony, helplessness, hopelessness, heartache and woe.” It’s pretty stupid, yes, but with brains.
Updated On: 4/25/08 at 03:40 PM
