Everything about the “Hairspray” at Signature Theatre is big: the voices, the energy, the imagination of director Eric Schaeffer and, of course, the hair. “Hairspray” takes place in 1962 Baltimore, where all teenager Tracy Turnblad (Carolyn Cole) wants to do is dance, dance, dance, especially on Corny Collins’ televised teen dance show.
Tracy is white but she goes to school with black students and she believes the world’s problems could be solved if everyone could simply dance together. In detention one day, a black student, Seaweed (the astonishing dancer James Hayden Rodriguez) teaches Tracy some steps. With that knowledge, Tracy catches Collins’ eye and becomes his new star.
| Onstage |
| ‘Hairspray’ |
| » Where: Signature Theatre, 4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington |
| » When: Through Jan. 29 |
| » Info: Tickets start at $63; 703-573-7328; signature-theatre.org |
When Tracy gets to meet her idol Link Larkin (Patrick Thomas Cragin), it seems that almost all her dreams have come true.
Her last and most important dream — to integrate the popular but segregated television show — takes a little more doing but Tracy is not someone who gives up easily in this feel-good musical with book by Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan, music by Marc Shaiman and lyrics by Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman.
The plot is contrived but clever. After being thrown in jail for trying to integrate the dance show, Tracy and Link return to the record store of Motormouth Maybelle (the brilliant Nova Y. Payton), rally a crowd and storm the Corny Collins’ Spectacular. Thus Tracy’s last dream is achieved.
Cole’s Tracy is a warm, high-energy character. Robert Aubry Davis plays her mother. Yes, that Robert Aubry Davis, the classical music DJ and host of WETA’s “Around Town” He pulls off the acting, singing and dancing, creating a perfect sense of goofiness about Edna Turnblad, doing all the right shimmies and shakes and eventually liberating Edna from her agoraphobia.
Lauren Williams is delightful as Penny, Tracy’s loyal BFF. One of the musical’s themes is the mother-daughter divide. Williams and Cole represent that struggle well, as does Erin Driscoll, who plays snobby Amber struggling with her mother, Velma (Sherri Edelen).
All the lead actors in this “Hairspray” are impressive, but it is the dynamic force of the 11-member ensemble of singers and dancers that makes the musical’s impact so intense. Stylishly choreographed by Karma Camp and Brianne Camp, who use every 1960s dance ever created, even when the stage seems to be overflowing with bodies, the action remains focused and clear.
Daniel Conway’s set is a brilliant blue floor with stairs to a second level at the rear. Various set pieces appear periodically but the stage is generally free for the abundance of dancing that makes this production such a spectacular, stimulating visual entertainment.
“Hairspray” is proof again that Schaeffer understands and knows how to produce musicals.
