BWW Reviews: Street Theatre Company's HAIRSPRAY

There is so much energy, enthusiasm and heart found in Street Theatre Company's Hairspray that it's certain to keep your spirits buoyed for a long time after leaving the theater. Brought to the stage by a competent creative team and a huge cast of committed performers, the Scott Wittman-Marc Shaiman musical - featuring a book by Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan based on John Waters' wholly original film - Hairspray is great big fun, featuring some lovable characters and one of the most infectious musical theatre scores around ("Mama, I'm a Big Girl Now," "Welcome to the '60s" and "You Can't Stop the Beat" are showtune standards now).

Perhaps it sounds fanciful that a musical comedy about teenagers trying to integrate a TV show in 1962 could provide fodder for a big, brassy Broadway hit, but that's exactly what Hairspray delivers. Taking audiences back to the hair-hopping days of early-'60s Baltimore, when TV dance shows were segregated, television screens were mostly black-and-white and the whole world called sides on the Liz Taylor/Eddie Fisher/Debbie Reynolds affair, Hairspray offers a brightly colored antithesis to the darker, moodier visions of the era offered by TV's Mad Men.

Sure those were unsettled times - and they were, indeed, a-changing - but it largely remained an era in which we could tell the good guys from the bad, thanks to the color of their hats, where everything it seems could be viewed in black-and-white, whether onscreen or off. While adults in Baltimore may have been reluctant to accept the mere mention of new ideas, youngsters were eager to latch on to the newest, biggest and brightest: hell, if you could put a man in space, surely you could put "Negroes" on the local TV teenaged dance party.

While it might weigh down Hairspray to foist historical gravitas (juxtaposing the civil rights struggle against the backdrop of teens twisting and shouting, while dancing "The Madison" or "The Mashed Potato") upon the scripted proceedings, there's enough bounce, lift and sheer ebullience to be found in O'Donnell and Meehan's crisply worded text to ensure a rocking and rollicking good time is had by all. Intelligently, the writers have retained enough of Waters' twisted vision for the piece to guarantee a certain off-kilter zaniness that is essential in transferring a significant part of the Waters oeuvre to the stage.

To their total credit, director Jon Royal, choreographer Bakari King and musical director Rollie Mains have assembled a cast of thousands - okay, it's more like 35 - of likable performers who are all focused on bringing Hairspray to a vibrant and believable onstage life, delivering that hummable, memorable score with a very real and palpable sense of theatricality. For Hairspray to succeed, it must be presented full-throttle, with a no-holds-barred sense of abandon that typifies Waters' view of the world - and STC's cast and crew prove themselves more than equal to that task.

With a smile as big as tomorrow and a heart that clearly knows no bounds, Tonya Pewitt brings heroine Tracey Turnblad to life with her pleasing portrayal of the plump ingenue. Clearly, Pewitt doesn't carry the physical weight to play the plus-size diva-in-training (she apparently was called on to take over the role when the actress originally cast fell ill, according to offstage sources), but what she lacks in girth she more than makes up for with her wide-eyed sense of wonder as Tracey. Her show-opening "Good Morning, Baltimore" sets the right tone for the production and, clearly, makes you want to hear more of her songs, particularly "I Can Hear the Bells," which, as expected, she nails! And while she may not be the best dancer on the stage, she holds her own, proving that Pewitt is a definite triple threat.

Paired with Pewitt as local TV heartthrob Link Larken, Michael Holder gives a pitch-perfect rendering of the part, looking for everything he's worth like a 1960s teen-with-a-dream while performing his songs with aplomb, delivering his lines with perfect timing - and doing every ridiculous thing required of him with a heart-meltingly winsome wink and impish glint in his eye. Frankly, if there's anyone in this region who's more suited to play Link, show 'em to me. Right now.

Pewitt and Holder's onstage chemistry is sweetly evocative, with a dollop of inappropriate hotness that's perfect for the play's time period, and the pair's duet on "It Takes Two" is one of the show's musical highlights.

As perfect as Michael Holder is as Link, there's more exemplary casting in this show. As Amber Von Tussle, the spoiled, petulant (and somewhat untalented) princess of "The Corny Collins Show," Rosemary Fossee may have been the very inspiration for the character as imagined by the show's creators (even if she wasn't even born when the movie was first made). Fossee gives a tour de force performance as Amber, looking for all the world as if she stepped out of Seventeen magazine's April 1962 number. A senior at Franklin Road Academy, she is already an accomplished actress with an impressive resume and possesses so much talent that it's mind-boggling. Mark my words: Rosemary Fossee will be a big star someday!

Mike Baum provides another case study for how casting the perfect actor in the part can make what could be the most enigmatic character in a show into one of its most appealing and most memorable. Charming and easy-going, Baum is so talented an actor, one who fits so seamlessly into any ensemble, that it is sometimes easy to overlook his tremendous contribution to the shows he is in; yet, his amazing versatility demands you sit up and take notice. Again (as with the case of Michael Holder's Link), if you can find someone better than Mike Baum to play Corny, show him to me. Right now, damn it!

The show's creative team was definitely on a roll at auditions, apparently, judging by the other members of this remarkable ensemble of gifted performers. Jennifer Whitcomb Oliva is in fine voice as Motormouth Maybelle ("I Know Where I've Been" and "Big, Blonde and Beautiful" are knock-outs!), her commanding presence making her an onstage persona to contend with and she looks great moving around that stage.

Nancy Allen is simply grand as the villainous Velma Von Tussle, chewing up the scenery and spitting out invective with relish, singing the role with a ferociousness that's echoed in her scenes with Fossee (their onstage mother-and-daughter pairing is impeccable) and when she tosses off bon mots in the direction of Tracey and Edna. The contrast of Velma and Amber's stylishness against Tracey and Edna's rather homespun dowdiness is deliciously compelling.

L.T. Kirk, as Edna, somewhat underplays his character's rather overwhelming traits (let's face it, subtlety is not something you would think off for a role associated with Divine or Harvey Fierstein - and I confess I wanted a more girlish Edna from this fine actor), but he delivers Edna's musical numbers with finesse mixed with the right amount of showgirl artifice. As Wilbur Turnblad, Edna's devoted husband and Tracey's supportive dad, Dan McGeachy plays him with a blend of daft oafishness and song-and-dance man skill. Kirk and McGeachy are terrific on "(You're) Timeless to Me."

There are countless other impressive performances onstage, making it impossible to single out every one of them. However, among the supporting cast, you cannot help but notice Jason Vitteri-Lewis (who gives us a great, over-the-top Mr. Pinky), Jama Bowen (as prudish Prudy Pingleton), Laura Oseland and Daniel Rye (so good together as Penny and Seaweed), and ensemble members Stephanie Benton, Alyssa Newman, Jordan Ravellette, Brandy Rogers, Brett Rosenblum, Alan Smith, Junior Turner, Alexandria Churchwell and Thomas Proctor Harton. And, to be certain, this production could not be the success it is without the tremendously entertaining efforts of "The Dynamites" aka Charletta Jordan, Saaneah Jamison and Naeaidria Michele Callihan.

Scott Boyd's deceptively simple set - which transforms the STC stage to a television studio - provides a perfect backdrop for all the onstage shenanigans called for in the book, and he is aided and abetted by Teresa Porterfield's lighting design and Lynda Cameron-Bayer's costume design in achieving that period look and feel that is required.

Mains' tight five-member musical ensemble provides the accompaniment for the actors, performing this score with requisite and expected skill. Kudos to J.J. Street's expert sound design and his ability to act on his feet, nimbly correcting some initial sound-mixing problems on opening night.

- Hairspray. Book by Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan. Music by Marc Shaiman. Music and lyrics by Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman. Based on the film by John Waters. Directed by Jon Royal. Choreographed by Bakari King. Music direction by Rollie Mains. Presented by Street Theatre Company, 1933 Elm Hill Pike, Nashville. For details, visit www.streettheatrecompany.org; for reservations, call (615) 554-7414.

Hairspray, presented by Street Theatre Company/photos by Kenn Stilger, Heavenly Perspective Photography, Nashville

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