Hairspray
Crown Theatre
★★★★
If someone in the 1970s had told Baltimore’s bad-taste titan John Waters (Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble and Polyester, among other gross-outs) one of his movies would be transformed into a Tony-winning Broadway musical he would have laughed, hard, and used it as the basis for his next envelope-pushing production.
However, by the time Waters made the film Hairspray (1988) he’d left behind the censorship controversies and moved toward the mainstream, yet retaining enough of his anti-establishment attitudes and out-there characters to bring his core audience along.
Chelsea Plumley as Velma Von Tussle.
Indeed, the cleverness of the 2002 Hairspray musical and the hit 2007 movie remake with John Travolta in the role made famous by Waters’ legendary drag queen Divine is how it manages to be a traditional Broadway musical yet retain its deliciously subversive quality with its funny, pointed critique of racism and size-ism.
The measure of how far the culture has moved toward the warped Waters worldview could be measured by the rapturous reception for this rousing production of Hairspray at Perth’s Crown Theatre on Sunday night, with a lengthy standing ovation to rival those we’ve been reading about at Venice Film Festival.
Of course, it helps when you have one of the most stirring and infectious final numbers in contemporary musical theatre, such as You Can’t Stop the Beat, a tribute to the soaring Phil Spector-produced Ike & Tina Turner classic River Deep, Mountain High that had the audience as elevated as the actual Tina Turner musical earlier this year.
While there are no big names in this locally produced show, performances across the board are top-notch, with standout turns in many of the key roles and one scene so beautifully performed by two of the veterans it alone makes it worth the price of a ticket.
Set in the early 1960s in Baltimore, when conservative white America was being shaken by the twin forces of the Civil Rights movement and black-inspired rock’n’roll (aka “race music”), Hairspray tells the story of a progressive plus-sized teen with big hair named Tracy Turnblad (Paige Fallu) who manages to score a gig as a dancer on a television variety show.
Despite the scheming of fattist and racist producer Velma Von Tussle (a hilariously high-pitched performance from Chelsey Plumley) and her equally bigoted daughter Amber (Elaina O’Connor also marvellously shrieky) Tracy manages to become a sensation, opening the door for the black community to get involved in the staunchly all-white show.
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