Hairspray with Harvey Fierstein

I went back to see Hairspray last month so that I could see Harvey Fierstein, who has returned to the show in its final months before it closes in January. Fierstein won a Tony Award in 2003 when he created the role of overlarge housewife Edna Turnblad, and I wanted to see him in this role after seeing a few video clips of his performance.

Edna is a woman played by a man, and each time I've seen the show I've always been conscious that the person playing the role was a man, for comic effect. But Fierstein plays Edna as a real woman: she's a woman who happens to be played by a man. She's just an odd woman; the script never calls for a man in drag, and Edna should be a real human, giving the show that much more of a heart.

I did always like Hairpsray from the start: when I saw it in its first national tour in Los Angeles, it was deftly directed as an intelligent, quirky comedy with a great message, packaged in a great production with a great cast and high energy dancing. The comedy was screwball and bizarre, tempered with a sly, mischievous wit that told the audience they knew they were being silly. It is hard not to get swept along by the story of a misfit but idealistic girl shunned for her size who stops at nothing to get to what she thinks is right. Different is good, the show says, and if the show entertains as it says that, all the better.

But, as wonderful as it was to see Fierstein as Edna - he was great, living up to all of my expectations - the show I saw (Tues, Nov 18) just wasn't the Hairspray that I loved when I first saw it. Perhaps the show has fallen a victim to long-run syndrome, when shows run for too long and performances grow stale. But the screwball quirkiness had turned into cheap slapstick, the mischievous wink became oversold mugging, and while some members of the chorus were still into it, others were walking through the choreography with blank stares. The show had become poor facsimile of what it once was, and was now just another corny Broadway musical. Sure, the show's 11'oclock power ballad, about pushing through adversity because you know where you've been and you're not going back, still roused, and the performance itself was silly and bright. Just, the fun wasn't as pointed as it once was, the comedy not as purposeful. How disappointing.

Production photo: Harvey Fierstein as Edna, by Paul Kolnik.