Review: HAIRSPRAY Is Big, Baaad, and Beautiful at Carlisle Theatre Company

Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman's HAIRSPRAY (book by Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan) has been done frequently. And that's not only okay, but great - not only is it easy to watch and to listen to, but the story has both heart and a message that's still strikingly relevant. But sometimes even a great show needs a jump start.

At Carlisle Theatre Company, the jump start comes with music director Nick Werner's having his excellent pit band hit the very first notes. While "Good Morning, Baltimore" is a classic in the first place, the sudden realization that Phil Spector is in the house - that the Carlisle Theatre has a live Wall of Sound machine going on in there - is a stunner. Pulling off the classic 1960's tidal wave of music that backed up the Ronettes and so many other groups that made the dancing of the period what it was, is a neat trick. Besides that, it sounds amazing. And it's the hair of such groups as the Ronettes, who wore it higher and prouder than anyone, that provides much of the action of this show, so a musical identification of Tracy Turnblad with Ronnie Spector is fair indeed.

Speaking of Tracy Turnblad, dancer, unintentional civil rights activist, and princess of high and proud hair, Aimeebeth Davis has no trouble bringing her to life on the Carlisle stage, from the moment she wakes up to her dance-off at the Miss Ultra Clutch pageant. Bringing her into the streets of Baltimore on that wall of sound sets her off immediately, a nice touch by director Dustin LeBlanc. As the girl groups who were part of the Wall of Sound style - the Ronettes, the Crystals, and the like, the models for the African-American girls seen as the Dynamites in HAIRSPRAY, were influencing teen girls at the time Tracy was listening to "The Corny Collins Show," her Ronnie Spector tribute is both appropriate and highly meaningful.

Ryan Boyles gives his all as Edna, Tracy's mother, who is the real star of the show. Edna's transformation from stay-at-home laundress to marcher to dancer is a heavy piece of character development that Boyles makes look easier than it is. His best moments are undoubtedly "Welcome to the Sixties" and his "You're Timeless to Me" with Terry Sheldon as a raffish Wilbur, but he's also well worth seeing in "Big, Blonde and Beautiful," the Act One closer, and in "You Can't Stop the Beat," in which Edna emerges fully formed, like a highly over-ripe Venus, from her enclosure.

Sean Deffley's Corny Collins is nicely done, the touch of snark in dealing with producer Velma Von Tussle clear in his performance, Collins' own security in his role as leader of Baltimore's teen scene obvious. Deffley plays a Collins who knows he doesn't need the studio, and who clearly can't wait to have his show integrated, like the Brill Building music his show plays. Area audiences are used to fine performances from Deffley, as well as from Jeremy Patterson, whose Seaweed glides across a dance floor as smoothly as his namesake waves underwater, and Patterson delivers as well, with a "Run and Tell That" that could easily scorch the Carlisle Theatre stage as well as some nice moves in rescuing the permanently punished Penny Pingleton (Carly Lafferty, getting the laughs the role deserves) in "Without Love".

Hillary Miller's Amber Von Tussle seems milder than many, less personally vicious than utterly dominated by a controlling mother. Lindsay Bretz as Velma Von Tussle, producer of Corny's show and defender of white America, feels more socialite and less obvious iron fisted fiend than many portrayals, though her "Miss Baltimore Crabs" is an absolutely lovely flow of venom. Greg Athanasatos is the production's Link Larkin, Elvis wannabe and love interest of Amber and Tracy alike. He's suitably smooth-voiced and slick-haired, and is a fine foil for Aimeebeth Davis; the chemistry's there.

But there's no HAIRSPRAY without Motormouth Maybelle, platter pitcher extraordinaire, and Gabrielle Dixon rocks the house on both "Big, Blonde, and Beautiful" and the eleven o'clock song of all time, "I Know Where I've Been". There were hands waving in the audience on the latter number, as there well should be, for it's one of the great anthems ever, even though it's a show tune, and the house fortunately waited to explode until the end of the song. This production, for all its other fine points, would be worth seeing for Dixon alone. And for a pit band worth writing home about.

At Carlisle Theatre Company through October 18. You may know where you've been, but if you haven't been to this production, this is where you should be. For tickets and information, check carlisletheatrecompany.com or call 717-258-0666.

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