Review: WORKING GIRL at La Jolla Playhouse

In adapting the film Working Girl into a musical, writer Theresa Rebeck, composer Cyndi Lauper and director Christopher Ashley have kept intact the bones of the source material. Leaving their tale in the dog-eat-dog ‘80s, Rebeck has moved some things around and beefed up some of the characters to emphasize that our underdog heroine, Tess McGill, had plenty of help in her ascent into the C-Suite. We see more of Cyn, Tess’s hugely loyal Best Friend; more of the group of office pool secretaries who form Tess’s posse, more of a backstory for Katharine Parker and Jack Trainor, Tess’s boss and one of her love interests.

Tinkering notwithstanding, Working Girl ultimately soars and plummets based on the root-ability quotient of its title character. Attempting to fill some substantial six-inch heels and $7,000 dresses, singer and author Joanna “JoJo” Levesque can’t really be classified as a discovery. She’s as good as her material, which is solid, tuneful and plenty enjoyable. Given the track records of its creative team, the source material and the project’s very clear Broadway aspirations, I frankly expected this world premiere at the La Jolla Playhouse to blow me over.  It did not. Admittedly, for fans of the film, any adaptation will be a daunting task. The bar was set sky-high and Harrison Ford, Sigourney Weaver and Joan Cusack at their comedic best, to say nothing of Melanie Griffith whose work in this film earned her an Oscar nomination and made her a star.

The tale remains largely the same. Tess is a secretary, a blue-collar, night school-educated dreamer who rides the ferry in from Staten Island every day and dreams vigorously of the day her ship will come in. The lady is smart, hot, a friend to everyone, possessed of a ton of great ideas…but stuck, alas, fetching coffee for men who don’t take her seriously and want to get under her skirt. Matters take a turn for the sunnier when she is assigned to a new boss, Katharine Parker (played by Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer) who talks and walks the female empowerment walk, but may not have Tess’s best interests in mind either. After the boss breaks her leg in a skiing accident, Tess impersonates Katharine to try to put together a media merger. To bring this off, she ropes in Jack (Anoop Desai), a mergers guy from another firm as well as Katharine’s former flame. Also providing critical aid are a veritable army of fellow pool workers led by Cyn (Ashley Blanchett). Tess also has Mick (Joey Tranto), a rocker boyfriend with a roving eye.

Working Girl, the film, was very much of its era and, through this adaptation, director Ashley and his design team are simultaneously giving the 80s sensibility a squishy bear hug and trying to level the Playing Field. Tess is given a cell phone the size of a small crowbar. Our working girls and boys sport plenty of 80s hair (aided by hair and wig designer Charles G. LaPointe) and tight skirts and power suits (from Linda Cho). Boardroom scenes are interspersed with parties. The occasional speedbump aside, Tess goes from office to office, making her difficult quest feel like, well, like a lot of fun.

It's easy to guess what would draw an artist like Lauper to this tale for her musical theater follow-up (more than a decade later!) to Kinky Boots. Between the 80s milieu, the Cinderella tale, the power of women and the good will of its heroine, Working Girl is in the composer’s wheelhouse. Her score is a pastiche of tuneful message-y songs that pump more than they preach. The office-set numbers, whether fronted by Tess, Katharine or Cyn make solid use of the army of secretaries put through their paces by choreographer Sarah O’Gleby. And in Tess’s solo “I want” songs – “Something More,” “No Place but Up” - Lauper locates her heroine’s heart. (Had this musical been made shortly after the film came out, it’s easy to envision Lauper herself playing Tess McGill).  

Perhaps trying to ratchet up the girl power equanimity, Rebeck gives Katharine plenty of spotlight both before, during and after she is sidelined. Not necessarily the entitled blue blood who sits back and steals other people’s ideas, this Katharine has a high old time parading across Europe flaunting her language skills and getting rich. Broadway vet Kritzer plays her with comedic gusto and infuses her with an amount of sympathy that the role may not entirely deserve. When Katharine reenters Tess’s story - her mind wrapped up in a tangle of achieving corporate success and facing her biological clock - we’re expected to view her (and by extension Tess and all working women) in a new light.

The play’s interest in its male characters feels more perfunctory. Jack Trainor proves to be yet another underdog – the son of an Indian ruler trying to make good in America. The charismatic Desai gets to strut his stuff in the second act number “Dreaming of Royalty.” On the other side of this love triangle, Taranto rocks out and rumbles as bad boy Mick. Mick has got almost as much stage time as Jack, but he feels like he wandered in from a different play.

Ensemble strength notwithstanding, without a forceful Tess, this GIRL is going nowhere. Levesque is an appealing mixture of pluck, starry eyes and vulnerability who plunks us into Tess’s corner and keeps us there.

Working Girl represents the directorial farewell for longtime La Jolla Playhouse Artistic Director Christopher Ashley who is taking over the artistic leadership at the Roundabout Theatre. Considering the Playhouse’s history as a San Diego-to-Broadway pipeline (Past pre-Broadway premieres include The Outsiders, Jersey Boys, Come From Away and Memphis), it remains to be seen whether Working Girl is – like Tess McGill – headed for the big time.

Working Girl continues through December 14 at 2910 La Jolla Village Dr., La Jolla.