Mackenzie Dunn, Javon King, Carmel Rodrigues and Sean Johnston. Photo: Jeff Busby
The hit Broadway musical is set in Baltimore in 1962, two years before the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act that outlawed racial discrimination in the US, and one year before Martin Luther King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech.
Tracy Turnblad, played by 23-year-old Carmel Rodrigues from Sydney’s North Shore, becomes a beacon for this civil unrest when the fun-loving teenager achieves her dream to dance on The Corny Collins Show.
The song “(The Legend of) Miss Baltimore Crabs” labels Turnblad as too short and stout to be on the hit dance show, but she smashes these beauty stereotypes following her successful audition and uses her new star-power to end the segregation of dancers. The rock and roll dance show that provides a stage for the changing attitudes towards racial segregation is a fictionalised version of Baltimore’s Buddy Deane Show that featured an all-white cast but had special days for “coloured” dancers that were held once a month, then once a week.
Baltimore local John Waters, who wrote and directed the original 1988 Hairspray film on which the musical is based, draws on some of the real history of the show, including the storming of the stage by a group of young people who flouted segregation rules by dancing together.
The Buddy Deane Show aired from 1954 until January 1964 when producers chose to cancel the show rather than integrate its dancers.
Waters departs from history here and gives Hairspray a “happy ending”, with Turnblad shouting the show is “now and forevermore…officially integrated”. A colourful celebration explodes on stage as the cast breaks out in a song, “You Can’t Stop the Beat”, that gives voice to a “changing history” and a “brand new day” that doesn’t “know white from black”.
The call to end segregation and racial injustice is the underlying theme of Hairspray but there are so many more layers to this full-scale Broadway production.
The high-energy musical is a joyous comedy with a strong cast of stage veterans, including Shane Jacobson, who has lost his trademark beard and is almost unrecognisable in the guise of Turnblad’s mother, Edna.
The odd ball partnering of Jacobson and Todd McKenney, as Turnblad’s quirky father Wilbur, provides plenty of laughs while Rhonda Burchmore is fabulous as the glamorous former beauty queen-turned-villain Velma Von Tussle.
The stage veterans provide a powerful foundation for Rodrigues, a former The Voice semi-finalist who is making her professional musical theatre debut in Hairspray, to shine as Turnblad, a character with big dreams and even bigger hair. Rodrigues brings plenty of energy and sass to the role of Turnblad, a singing and dancing firecracker who chases love, with teen heart-throb Link Larkin (Sean Johnston), her dream of dancing on TV and social revolution – all with a fearless determination.
New York-based all-rounder Javon King delivers a big dose of charisma, and plenty of pelvic thrusts, to the role of Seaweed J Stubbs who acts as a bridge that allows the white community to join the fight to end segregation. Leading this fight is Motormouth Maybelle, played by Asabi Goodman (Elvis), who delivers a powerhouse performance.
Hairspray, directed by Matt Lenz with choreography re-created by Dominic Shaw, is at the Sydney Lyric Theatre until April 2. Bookings: hairspraymusical.com.au
