Hairspray in Sandy

Last night I had the opportunity to see ‘Hairspray’ at the Sandy Amphitheatre. For those of you who have never been to a show at the Sandy Amphitheatre-GO. It is a beautiful, well-maintained venue; although it is not used exclusively for theatre productions it has garnered quite the reputation for being the anti-community theatre theatre. I love that you can tell Sandy is one of the few cities in the valley who not only supports their Arts Council, they take pride in it as well. I was using cast comps, but tickets are a bit on the expensive side, $13.00-15.00 for Premium Seating, or General Admission lawn seating for $7.00-and just as nice-or so I’m told. Based on my Type A nit pickiness ‘Hairspray’ was definitely not Sandy’s best production, but it was far from being one of the worst.

‘Hairspray’ is the story of Tracy Turnblad, a cute, spunky, open-minded teenage girl growing up in segregated Baltimore circa 1960. For those of you unfamiliar with the story, click here.

I decided to spare Mr. Wonderful and brought my Theatre Husband, Sparky. We were immediately captivated by the old clips from “Leave It to Beaver”, “The Beverly Hillbillies”, and commercials from the 60’s projected in black and white onto a retro TV screen backdrop. This provided the perfect way for me to slip into the ambiance being created.

My only complaint for the pre-show was I was told only one playbill was allowed per couple. Seriously?! I kind of understand the waste not, want not mentality, but I was still a little peeved regardless. Theatre Husband and I both enjoy reading through our programs and chatting about who we know before the show starts, and this is difficult to do with only one program. I am usually one of the patrons who will give my program back to be recycled if it’s made available, so I don’t understand why they don’t just do that instead of rationing them. I think now would be a good time to apologize for not using the character names of the actors rather than their real names, but I let Theatre Husband take our program home to add to his collection and the cast list is giving me error pages.  

The TV I mentioned earlier played a central role during the Corny Collins Show. At first glance I thought it was another projection of pre-recorded material, but then I realized the TV camera on stage was in fact a working prop, and I was watching “live TV”. The little touches helped engage me further in the show. The rest of the set was lovely and built on wheeled platforms that made for seamless and fast set changes (kudos to the tech crew from a fellow techie!), but the height of some sets wobbled severely any time an actor was on them (particularly the jail cell bars and Turnblad home), taking me out of the show each time it waved at me.

The costumes were very well done, and there was enough diversity that I could focus on the story and not be distracted by the matchy-matchy costumes. Penny and Velma’s costumes were amazing- every single one of their best features was played up in each one. All I could do was watch in envy and WISH I looked as fabulous as they did. As wonderful as they looked I only wish a particular blue and white feather costume covered the tattoos on one of the principles. It may not have been an issue for those in the back-but being front and center I was able to see them and it took me right out of the finale.

I was there primarily to support my friend Courtney playing Amber Von Tussle. She had the bratty part down, but I wanted her to be more entitled and snobby. I still enjoyed her performance. I HATED her wig. It was just so HUGE, BLONDE, and OBNOXIOUS. I kept looking at it wondering how in the world Tracy was consistently put in detention for her hairstyle of choice-because it was a "monumental hair-don't" but there was hair on that stage that was much, much worse. A few cast members whose natural hair was distracting, but Amber and Motormouth Maybelle’s wigs took the cake here. They were just too big and over the top-detracting so much from both actor's performances. When I wasn’t feeling that both Courtney and Maybelle were being hindered or upstaged by those awful masses of yellow hair I was waiting for them to fall right off.

The actress who played Tracy was good-although I wanted her to be a little more energetic, a little beltier with her songs, and more than anything I wanted her to stop smiling. Not because it wasn’t ADORABLE, but because every time she smiled (which was any time she was on stage) I felt that it was forced and a little fake. For me, Tracy needs to be someone likable-someone you would want as a friend, and I caught myself a few times thinking she was neither. She is a very talented girl so I am going to say she was tired last night-and leave it at that.

Edna Turnblad is far and away one of my favorite roles. I don’t know if it’s because it’s a drag role, she’s more on the robust side, or if it’s because she’s just so darn likable, but I just love her. The actor playing Edna last night? He was perfect-and he had a set of legs that every woman only wishes she had. I know I did.

The pairing of actors for Seaweed and Penny was good, and they were both great alone, but together I didn’t believe that they were in love. They were missing something. I wanted Penny's freak flag to fly a little higher in the end, but I still enjoyed her character choice.

The ensemble was well-rounded and fun to watch, although I kept sensing that though they had ten weeks of rehearsal a lot of the actors (principals included) weren’t as strong on their singing and dancing as they should have been. Too often I saw cast members watching the stronger dancers for choreography help. The singing faltered a lot-almost like they were supposed to be singing harmony and forgot, but rather than go to the melody they began mouthing the words. This usually isn’t a problem, unless you're mic-ed like these actors were.

There were many great casting choices, but there was really only one character I didn't like. Velma. She was just so loud and brash-I wanted to see a conniving, scheming, grown version of Amber. I kept feeling she was trying to steal every scene she was in and I hated her for all the wrong reasons. On a positive note she did have an amazing figure and some of the best costumes of the night.

Throughout the evening I kept feeling like the majority of the cast was merely ‘calling in’ their performance. Those who weren’t blase' were just too corny, too over the top, making things look disjointed as a result. I don’t know if it was being outside in the muggy night air, because it was a Monday night, or if they were just finally at the point where they were ready to be finished with the run, but it was very distracting. The finale was fun to watch, but I wanted to see the energy crescendo through the show to the end, but instead I left feeling it had fizzled-with one exception.

When Maybelle sings “I Know Where I’ve Been” I had gooseflesh up both arms and tears in my eyes-it was just so moving. I believed her pain, her hope, and her courage. She made me, an extremely boring white girl from Salt Lake-feel what it must’ve been like for a black person before the Civil Rights Movement.

The story of love, friendship, and acceptance resonated with me last night. In spite of my nit-pickiness it is a well-put together show and is worth your time. Just make sure you choose your seat carefully. The closer you are the easier it is to notice the little unnecessary things as well as experiencing sensory overload.

Sandy City’s ‘Hairspray’ runs this Wednesday August 24^th through Saturday August 27^th