Despite a few minor uncomfortable moments when you wonder if the script has been adequately updated with modern sensibilities in mind, issues of race and segregation through the lens of the 1960s are deftly handled, if in a fairly cheesy way. The rich 1960s setting is brimming with creative fervour and is perfectly offset by a politically uneasy Baltimore, the crucible for the country’s racial tensions. The Broadway musical adaption, despite the minor (and to be honest, slightly inferior) adjustments to the original script and story, makes you wonder why it wasn't a musical in the first place. 14 years later, the musical opened on Broadway, honouring the tradition of casting a male actor in the Edna Turnblad role to honour legendary drag performer Divine, who played Tracy’s mother in the original movie. Originally, the movie (which, by the way, was not a musical) saw average box office earnings before it evolved into a cult classic thanks to the fertile ground of the humble video store. And if the opening number – the irrepressibly infectious ‘Good Morning Baltimore’ – isn’t the proof in the pudding from the first few seconds of the production, then we clearly have different tastes in dessert.īased on the original cult 1988 movie of the same name – no, not the one with Amanda Bynes, John Travolta and Michelle Pfeiffer, which came after the musical adaption – Hairspray delivered a young Ricki Lake her breakout moment, and featured Debbie Harry as the evil, racist mom to boot. We've seen a lot of these such adaptations in Melbourne of late – versions of both Bring It On and Cruel Intentions have hit our stages in the past year alone – but Hairspray is arguably of a different calibre. Do you stay true to the source text? Do you take the original story and mould it into something unique? There are inevitable creative tensions that arise when adapting a movie into a musical to take a much-loved, cult flick and turn it into a legitimate singing, dancing hit live on stage is fraught with danger.
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