At Salt Lake City’s Eccles Theater, Broadway at the Eccles’ Hairspray is A Retro Tale of Guts and Glory.
By Kathryn Olsen
Spring is the person to explore joyful things and, as Front Row Reviewers found out at Salt Lake City’s Eccles Theater, Hairspray presented by Broadway at the Eccles is the perfect experience for such things. This musical, which originated as a 1988 comedy film by John Waters, was adapted for stage in 2002 by Mark Shaiman and Scott Wittman, with the book by Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan. I’ve been singing along to the Broadway and movie versions for years, so I brought a fellow musical theater enthusiast, put on my dancing shoes, and headed to Salt Lake City for a 1960s-style night of inspiration.
As the play opens, Baltimore teenager Tracy Turnblad (Niki Metcalf) hopes for a life of stardom and significance. By day, she gets thrown into detention for how often her bouffant blocks the view of her fellow students, but she religiously watches a popular teen dance program after school. When it’s revealed that local TV sensation Corny Collins (Billy Dawson) is looking for a new dancer on his show, she decides to skip school with her best friend, Penny (Emery Henderson) to go after her dreams. She is initially rejected by mean girl Amber (Carly Haig) and her domineering mother Velma (Addison Garner), but overcomes that hurdle by impressing Corny at a school hop. Every girl on the show hopes to be Miss Teen Hairspray 1962, but Tracy also hopes to see The Corny Collins show racially integrated. Whether either dream will come true is a show-long point of suspense.
This show is a fantastic example of the effectiveness of ensemble casts, but is full of stand-out performances. Metcalf’s performance straddles the line between pure-hearted charisma and earnest love for her neighbor. Her dance skills are inspired, from the teenage fantasy of “I Can Hear the Bells” to the show-stopping “You Can’t Stop the Beat,” and while the audience is naturally supposed to root for her success, Metcalf brings the emotional arc to a climax while still retaining vestiges of unconquered spirit.
Haig as Tracy’s rival and foil stepped forward from a different role for this performance and dazzled even more than her wardrobe. Amber as a character is obsessed with holding her place on a pedestal while wanting real relationships and this is played to great comedic effect. It takes someone with no fear of the over-the-top to do the character justice and I certainly loved to loathe Haig in this role.
Garner is certainly the tree that Haig did not fall from. Amber is an example of teenage drama taken to new heights while Velma is a character for sinking to new lows. Garner takes on “(The Legend of) Miss Baltimore Crabs” with a malicious confidence and sense of superiority and these two traits make her a quintessential villain who only discards the condescension when she needs to simper. The contrast is delightful.
Link Larkin is another stand-out character, portrayed by Nick Cortazzo in this production. At the beginning, Link seems to be someone on the receiving end of his life choices, whether being told how to befriend the new girl on the show by his host or being roped into a scheme to make his girlfriend Amber a star. Cortazzo is adorable in his often oblivious comments, but earns audience enthusiasm when he resumes thinking for himself. It doesn’t hurt that “The next Elvis” is a captivating singer as well.
Dawson appears primarily in a role that doesn’t leave much wiggle room for his character development, as he is the model of a TV personality and his job is too intertwined with his personal life for him to break character much. Dawson’s charisma and winking stage presence carries the show and draws the audience into the essential humor of the play.
Departing from those with skin in the primary game, we find Tracy’s best friend Penny. Henderson does a fun impression of a cowed mama’s girl who takes all her cues from what won’t get her into trouble until her relationship with Seaweed J. Stubbs (Charlie Bryant III) emboldens and liberates her. She is completely unrecognizable by the end of the show and Henderson’s take on that journey is very relatable. Bryant III is, in his own right, a powerful character in the early days of his greatness and cut from the same cloth as his bold mother.
Lauren Johnson as Motormouth Maybelle is a steady presence rather than a sensational one. In Tracy’s first appearance on TV, she wishes that the show would stop its segregation policies. As the setting is the Civil Rights movement, the inclusion of these issues is both essential to the plot and thought-provoking across the sixty years since that time. Johnson presents herself to the world in great power even before she belts “Big, Blonde and Beautiful,” and while it seems absurd for her to be considered a threat, the journey of her oppression is portrayed with wonderful clarity and strength. In previous incarnations, Maybelle has been a merely enjoyable character for me, but Johnson is the reason that I cried during “I Know Where I’ve Been” at this performance.
THe elder Turnblads must be mentioned in concert with each other. Wilbur (Ralph Prentice Daniel) is the owner of a joke shop and his natural joy is clearly a driving force in his loving and quirky marriage to his wife Edna (Andrew Levitt (AKA Nina West)). Daniel plows through the character’s various antics as someone who is fiercely loyal, but happy to encourage others’ dreams in place of his own. Levitt/West was certainly the audience favorite. The role of Edna has been played in drag since Divine originated it in 1988 and Levitt/West carries on that remarkable tradition. They have a storied and celebrated career as a drag queen over the past two decades as a performer and, while they were commended as Miss Congeniality in Ru Paul’s Drag Race, they turned their skills to play Edna with a ferocious sense of maternal responsibility. Daniel and Levitt/West strengthen each other’s performances with unerring chemistry.
The ensemble roles are wonderfully done, whether the relentlessly friendly “nicest kids in town” or the ones frequently seen as troublemakers for the color of their skin. The show is a memorable throwback to the 1960s with jokes that are funnier in hindsight and fashions that belong in the past, but it is the ensemble that makes the decade a lived experience for everyone in the audience. Dance Captain Faith Norcutt and Assistant Dance Captain Matthew J. Kelly have everyone moving and grooving to the best of the tunes with skill and precision and the contributions of Assistant Choreographer Gabi Stapula.
As always with Broadway at the Eccles shows, the crew and staff are invaluable and a skilled team because of tour direction by The Booking Group and Associate Director Leonard Sullivan. Production Stage Manager Emily Kritzman and Assistant Stage Manager Megan Belgam are in charge of the numerous and complex elements of a play that seems to be always in motion, switching from bedrooms to Baltimore streets within a single verse. These designs, managed by Associate Scenic Design Dick Jaris, are as much a creative influence as the work of Assistant Lighting Design Wheeler Moon and Moving Light Programmer Parker Conzone. Costume Coordinator Kurt Alger and Assistant Costume Coordinator DJ Plunkett must rarely rest, given the number of major changes that some of the characters have to undergo and how skillfully the look of the cast gets updated, while Hair/Makeup Supervisor Cheyenne Hart and Assistant Hair/Makeup Michael Roman keep everyone camera-ready. Of course, Music Supervisor Keith Thompson and Music Coordinator John Mezzo work hard with Conductor Julius LaFlamme to make the music something that can’t be overlooked.
Hairspray is only in Salt Lake City until April 16, so run to the Eventorium or the Eccles Theater to grab seats now. You can’t stop the paradise the show is dreaming up and you won’t want to miss the effect it is sure to leave on your heart.
A review by Front Row Reviewers. Broadway at the Eccles Presents Hairspray; Music and Lyrics by Mark Shaiman and Scott Wittman, with the book by Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan
Delta Performance Hall at Eccles Theater, 131 Main St, Salt Lake City, UT 84111
April 11-16, 2023, 7:30 PM. See website for individual performances.
Tickets: $49-149
Contact: (801) 355-ARTS (2787) or Toll-Free 1 (888) 451-ARTS (2787)
www.saltlakecountyarts.org/venues/eccles-theater/
Broadway at the Eccles Facebook Page
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