The Associated Press reported today that John Travolta will play the role of Edna Turnblad in the movie version of the musical version of the original movie of Hairspray. This is one of my favorite shows. I scored a first rate seat (third row center aisle) on a night when the entire original cast was performing. Hands down, it was the most energetic, coherent, lovely performance by a cast that I have ever seen. There's a number in the second act, where Edna and her husband (played by Harvey Fierstein and Dick Latessa) sing a duet called "You're Timeless to Me." It was the most pure moment of theatrical magic.
I've become accustomed to disappointment with the casting of movie musicals, which has been grumped over by fans and pundits since Hollywood first borrowed from the Broadway stage. It's just another variation of the "she was ROBBED" game that gets played every year following the Oscar nominations. I loved Mr. Fierstein's performance, but I'm not surprised he wasn't cast. I'm actually not horrified with the casting of Mr. Travolta, as I think that he will treat the character with respect and play her as the sweet woman she is supposed to be. A mere glimpse of him in Battlefield Earth conclusively proves that he's not concerned with his appearance in the movies, so I don't think he's going to get wrapped up in some sort of narcissistic snit about whether the audience will forget he's male.
What I am concerned about is the way the musical will likely fare in the hands of Hollywood producers. I was also fortunate enough to see Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick on Broadway in The Producers. To see Nathan Lane live on stage is to see a genius in his natural element. There is no theatrical performer today so adept at judging and manipulating the mood of the audience. He has a special alchemy on stage that is lost on film. He and Mr. Broderick have a beautiful chemistry together. I was pleased that the film brought not only Mr. Lane and Mr. Broderick, but the director and choreographer Susan Stroman to the set. But I was disappointed with the movie.
I wish moviemakers would realize that they will never bring in the size audience that they are hoping for to a musical. There are people who like musicals and will go see them, and people who don't, and the twain doesn't very often mix. So there is very little point in leaving out things that the existing audience wants to see. In this case, who decided that Nathan Lane was the weak point of this show? He won every award and piece of praise known to man for his stage performance, and even within the limits that film places on him, he's still the high point of the movie. But for some reason, Mr. Lane's opening number "The King of Broadway" was cut from the film, and the duet "Where Did We Go Right?" was mangled until it might as well not have been included.
What do we get instead? Plenty of footage of Matthew Broderick dancing with Uma Thurman. Ms. Thurman has a beautiful face and figure and a passable singing voice. She doesn't dance much at all. I understand that the average filmmaker would probably say, "Less fat nasal guy, more of Uma's tits!" But if a person's raison d'etre for seeing a movie is Uma Thurman's breasts, surely The Producers would constitute a disappointment?
The choreography is also a disappointment. Susan Stroman is a master of the big, showy dance number, of which we got, essentially, squat. She was the director, but I can only assume that there were other minds determining what made it onscreen.
I thought the whole movie (which did have its moments) was summed up by an image in the eleven o'clock number "Betrayed." It's a show stopper on stage, it's the best moment in the movie, and what we see is Nathan Lane bouncing off the bars of his prison cell, trapped by the medium and the clunky editing.
Hairspray is closer to The Producers than it is to Rent, Chicago, or Phantom. It's not a sexy show, and the original film it sprang from has a devoted following. I have my hopes for this latest movie, but I'm not allowing them to rise very high. That magic number that swept me away? It's a little piece of music hall kitsch sung by a fat old woman and a skinny old man. I doubt Hollywood will give it the chance to fly.
