That Guy From TV

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The New York Sun

“Hairspray” opened soon after I moved to New York in 2002, and I found it one of the most uplifting confections I have ever seen. I saw it six times within its first year and half. The other night I dropped in on it again.

For the first time, I left feeling more or less the way I had when I went in. “Hairspray” has gotten old.

For one thing, Cheer’s “Norm” George Wendt is now playing plus-sized Edna Turnblad, a role originated by Harvey Fierstein in one of the most fascinating performances ever seen on Broadway. Striding about in a fat suit and wig and speaking in his froggy voice, Mr. Fierstein managed to convey Edna as a living, breathing female person, such that Edna and her husband’s love duet was actually touching.

Mr. Wendt’s only qualification for the role is his avoirdupois. He is not a musical-sized performer, conveying no joy and doing the dance movements in quotation marks. He was cast, clearly, because of his bankability as a television icon. It leaves a hole in the show.

Among the whole cast, diction also has been allowed to go out the window for some reason. Even with body mikes, about half of the lyrics in the faster songs are barely comprehensible. The sound technician could fix some of this, but doesn’t, nor has anyone on the staff suggested he do so.

What put “Hairspray” over the top for me was its verbal wit. But six years into its run, a show that was once about words to such a large extent is now about images and volume. A man in drag, a girl with big hair, cartoony sets, bright colors, a torchy ballad that ends with a long high note, etc.

I always liked the fact that a show as ironic as “Hairspray,” with its campy yet earnest take on the transition from Camelot to the Counterculture, was holding on for so long. It seemed to indicate a more layered sense of taste than mass audiences are often given credit for.

But I guess not: I came at “Hairspray” from the perspective of a musicals fanatic who trawls the chat groups and has hundreds of cast albums. It would appear that for people unencumbered with this affliction, what puts the show over is the easy stuff — flash, noise, slapstick.

Plot-heavy, language-driven musicals do not usually have endless runs these days, but “Hairspray” gets in through the back door because of the broad strokes. “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” and even the “Producers” were more relentlessly driven by words alone, and thus R.I.P. “Spring Awakening,” all about sex and young people (how daring!) is clearly set to run seven hundred years. “Grey Gardens,” all about lyrics and older people, ran nine months.

So once the musicals nuts had all seen “Hairspray,” what was keeping it going was those less obsessed with a show being different or interesting, and ready for just a good time. Which means that if the show starts losing its edge — i.e., it gets hard to hear more than half of the many witty lyrics and few of the current cast members are as special as the originals — people will keep coming.

More and more of them likely miss most of the script as well. Foreign tourists are much of what keep long-running shows going, and behind me the other night sat a row of French women. One explained to another one what the show is about: “A large girl is in love with a boy and once he sees her dance he starts to find her interesting.” Right — like Citizen Kane is about a rich man fixated on his childhood sled whose wife leaves him.

They chatted throughout the show. I also wonder how much the two Japanese tourists in front of me got out of it besides the colors, the costumes, and the dancing.

I should not be surprised, then, that they are now selling popcorn at “Hairspray.” It smelled like we were at a Loew’s watching “Rush Hour 3.” Down at “Rent,” people are allowed to have drinks with ice during the performance, clinking away as the performers shout, often unintelligibly.

It doesn’t matter that George Wendt throws away or misfires every third comedy line and barely seems to want to be on stage. He’s that guy from TV — even Japanese business students have been assigned to study episodes of “Cheers” in order to learn what American humor is. During the curtain call, Mr. Wendt took his bow and of course a great shout arose from the audience: “NORM!”

Mr. McWhorter is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.


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