Hairspray: A bouffant Broadway musical hit

NEW YORK, Sept. 9 (UPI) -- "Hairspray," the new Broadway season's first hit musical, is an endearing recreation of the early 1960s when America's feminine hairstyle was bouffant, pop culture was rampant, and the future seemingly bright and unlimited if only race relations could be improved.

Based on John Waters' wacky 1988 movie starring Ricki Lake as an unlikely overweight aspirant for television dance show fame and the drag artist Divine as her equally overweight mother, "Hairspray" stars Marissa Jaret Winokur as the daughter and Harvey Fierstein as the mother. It's a match made in heaven, making Winokur a breakthrough star and bringing Tony Award-winning Fierstein ("Torch Song Trilogy") back to Broadway as an actor for the first time in 15 years.

The show, which has settled in at the Neil Simon Theater for years to come, owes its irresistible magnetism to a effervescent score and songs by Hollywood composer Marc Shaiman, best known for his music in the animated movie version of "South Park." Shaiman collaborated with Scott Wittman on the lyrics, and the book was co-authored by Thomas Meehan, who won a 2001 Tony Award for co-writing "The Producers," and Mark O'Donnell.

"Hairspray," spectacularly directed by Jack O'Brien, is the best Broadway musical since "The Producers," but its satirical elements have a sweetness totally lacking in Mel Gibson's cynical show about a Broadway con man. It is an original creation that escapes the old-fashioned clichés of another current hit musical on Broadway, "Thoroughly Modern Millie," and is never condescending to its material, which is sometimes camp but never vulgar.

Set in integration-resistant Baltimore in 1962, the show follows the adventures of white teenager Tracy Turblad in her bid to be a featured star on a local TV dance program on station WZZT and her crusade to have her black friends included on the program instead of relegated to a once-a-month "Negro Day." Racial issues are explored, but not heavy-handedly, and they never outweigh the comic tone of the story.

Winokur, actually 29, passes easily as a pudgy, sawed-off teen who can dance up a storm (and sing one, too) without disturbing a strand of her lacquered beehive hairdo. She can be wistful as well as suitably brash and epitomizes one of the show's anthems titled "The Nicest Kids in Town." She has the audience eating out of her hand with Tracy's very first catchy number, "Good Morning Baltimore."

As Tracy's agoraphobic, hardworking mother, Edna Turnblad, Fierstein gives an empathetic performance as agoraphobic woman who takes in other people's laundry and lives mainly through her daughter. When events transform her into a personality in her own right, she becomes a magnificent send-up of the indomitable stage mother.

The show's one imperishable visual memory if of Tracy and Edna dressed in turquoise and hot-pink print silk gowns edged in matching marabou plumage, teetering on high heeled dancing shoes under the weight of their outsized coiffeurs, and singing a duet, "Welcome to the 1960s" to the powerful beat of Shaiman's music. They are backed up by a Supremes-like trio, who act as a "Hairspray" Greek chorus.

Turning in a really fine performance as Tracy's wispy dad, Wilbur, is Broadway veteran Dick Latessa. He is slyly playful and wise and totally delightful in his scenes with Edna, whom he obviously adores despite her overpowering size and her sharp tongue. His love duet with Fierstein is in the vein of a romantically sweet music hall number and is a show-stopper just as composer Shaiman intended.

Others in the cast who make outstanding contributions are Linda Hart as Velma Von Tussle, the openly racist producer of the WZZT dance show, Laura Bell Bundy as her poisonous daughter, Amber, Clark Thorell as Corny Collins, the breezy host of the show, and Mary Bond Davis as Motormouth Maybelle, a black record shop owner and "Negro Day" host who befriends Tracy and bolsters her determination to integrate the dance show.

Matthew Morrison is attractively hunky as the boyfriend of Tracy's dreams and eventually her real beau. Also effective are Corey Reynolds as Maybelle's activist son and Kerry Butler as Tracy's indecisive girlfriend. They are supported by the most attractive, keyed-up chorus of singing-dancers currently to be seen on Broadway.

Jerry Mitchell's inspired choreography is one of the musical's major strengths together with David Rockwell's plush scenery, gorgeously lit by Kenneth Posner, and William Ivey Long's outrageous 1960s costumes, some of the best ever designed by this multi-Tony Award winner also represented on Broadway by "The Producers." Kudos would not be complete without one for Paul Huntley's remarkably architectural wigs and hair designs.

The show ends triumphantly with the full cast singing "You Can't Stop the Beat." Don't even try.