Cry-Baby a disappointment

(James Snyder and Elizabeth Stanly in Cry-Baby at the La Jolla Playhouse. Photo by Kevin Berne.)

I was genuinely excited (two mobile blog posts!) about Cry-Baby, which I saw on Dec 8 during its pre-Broadway tryout at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego. But it ended up being was such a disappointment, with the creative team involved and the promise of the source material. Not that the show didn't have its moments. In fact, the staging itself was pretty good, with energetic dance numbers and a talented cast. The problem was with the stage adaptation itself, which was shallow, disjointed and schizophrenic in tone. They couldn't seem to decide whether to be endearing and silly or sardanonic and biting, so the show careened jarringly between the two.

The story is a class struggle of sorts: "bad" boy from the wrong side of the tracks meets an upper class good girl, the two fall in love, clash of the rebels and the cream of society ensues. It's clear with the the show's attempts at humor (and the John Waters source material), that they want to be Hairspray. But watching Hairspray, you actually cared about the characters - they are so modest and loveable that you fall for them and sympathize with them, then root for them when the sarcastic silliness strolls in to shake things up.

In Cry-Baby, the characters are stock, cardboard cutouts from the beginning, and they don't get fleshed out as the show goes on: we have the squeaky-clean good girl (there's even a song about the "good" folks being "squeaky" clean), and then the "bad" boy from the "wrong side of the tracks." They fall in love immediately, like, within the first seven minutes of the show, after having seen each other for less than ten seconds.

The show presents them with very silly songs to start, and then throws a curve ball of third person, sly, or wink-wink humor in - like in an otherwise very fun song where the characters describe their woe with a multitude of synonyms ("misery, agony, helplessness, hopelessness, heartache and woe-oh, oh oh oh ohhhh"), the last chorus suddenly sings "so we're stuck in this chorus, pulled from the world's biggest thesaurus." Or in another instance, the "good" kids sing a too-long song about being quease-inducingly "squeaky clean" - wouldn't squeaky be a term that someone else apply to them, not them to themselves? This all has the effect of throwing the audience out of the story and drawing attention to the fact that everyone on stage is shallow and one-dimensional.

The good stuff comes in isolated chunks: much of the aforementioned "Misery, Agony, etc." song is good old-fashioned musical comedy fun (until the last chorus), as is "Can I Kiss You?" in Act 1, which portrays the awkwardness of falling in love set against a backdrop of comically romping lovers in the field behind. "Jailyard Jubilee" is a frenetic burst of searing energy in Act 2 - only its length barely adds anything to the plot, and this sudden rock-n-roll dance number seems to come out of nowhere. It is like a rock ballet dropped in from another musical.

James Snyder in the title role plays Cry-Baby as best as he can with the thin material. He has an attractive singing voice and a pretty great Elvis impersonation, working hard to sell a song that quite literally goes, "Baby baby baby baby baby baby baby (baby baby)." Harriet Harris and Carly Jibson stood out in subsidiary roles - Harris the matronly protector of upper class society who later shows that she has a real hart, Jibson in a hilarious supporting role of Cry-Baby's a pregnant "bad girl" friend. Elizabeth Stanley played Cry Baby's romantic foil Allison as a pretty blonde ingenue, sweet but with not much texture.

With such talent involved - plus a colorful, lavish physical production - one hopes that they will be able to fix their problems on the way to Broadway. Perhaps more scenes would help, scenes that set up the individual characters as real people before they start doing ridiculous and sarcastic things to one another. The characters need heart so that we the audience will be willing to go along with them for their silly ride.