Hairspray (review)

When the lights come up on Marissa Jaret Winokur in the opening number of the musical version of John Waters' film Hairspray, one is immediately engaged by the combination of classic [Begin Page 721] set design (a vertical bed) and a fresh Broadway voice that punches out the all important first number with the distinction of an Ethel Merman or a Carol Channing. Winokur's sharp, infectious vocals strikingly intone the "Oh, Oh, Oh" of Hello Baltimore and begin to create a powerful persona for the Tracy Turnblad character first interpreted by Rickie Lake in the 1980s film. Winokur's resemblance to Lake paves the way for the much-anticipated entrance of Harvey Fierstein in the role of Tracy's mother, originated on screen by drag queen extraordinary Divine. Fierstein's costume and wig, identical to Divine's in the film, inspires immediate applause and helps to establish the nostalgic, citational tone of the overall mise-en-scène.

The primary narrative of Waters' original script focuses on race relations through the gaze of a group of 1960's teenagers. Winokur's role—the pivotal anti-racist voice in the piece—quickly becomes the lone dissenting character who motivates other white teenagers to support her as she attempts to integrate an all-white television dance show. When Tracy exclaims to a young male black dancer that she wishes every day was "Negro Day," he replies, "At my house it is." The comic lines centered on race in the musical are simultaneously amusing and disturbing. Later in the piece an entire song is devoted to the especial sweetness of a blackberry, and of course, not to miss a trick, the score includes a turn on an old sexualized racial cliché when the character of Penny exclaims in song "Now I've tasted chocolate and I'm never going back."

The racialization of the book and lyrics subtly intersect with Tracy's plight as a young woman burdened by her physical size. As an aspiring dancer on the Corny Collins show Tracy is heckled by slimmer, blonder women in the number Miss Baltimore Crabs. This connects nicely to a song later in the show, performed by one of the black teen-agers' mothers entitled Big, Blonde, and Beautiful. What seems on the surface to be a simple feel-good musical about a group of rebellious teenagers becomes a complex arrangement of signifiers that construct complex analogies among a variety of subject positions. Perhaps the most disturbing racialized lyric, Cooties, goes overboard as it establishes a racist connection between color and personal hygiene:

They came from way far out
in outer space
and with her help
they may destroy the human race

. . . black, white, red, green
every color in between
dresses like a circus clown
somebody oughta hose her
down

grew up in a cootie zoo
I bet her two-ton Mama's
got 'em too

The racialized aspect of the musical, although disturbing at times, ultimately constructs, as much as a musical of this kind can, a thought-provoking statement on how far we have come as a continent that continues to struggle with civil rights. The feminine, wholesome costuming of the young black teenager Little Inez, one of the first black characters to be dismissed from the all-white dance chorus of the Corny Collins show, makes a strong intertextual connection to Norman Rockwell's painting The Problem We All Live With. Race relations are dealt with very seriously and very playfully in this production that could be subtitled—The Problem we all sing-a-long with.

An extraordinary cast of singers and dancers moves effortlessly across the stage through a series of plot-driven scenes that integrate song and dance in classic Broadway style. Distinctions made between various styles of movement are clarified by less obviously...