I took my 12 year old daughter to see the new John Water's stage adaptation of his 1990 movie Cry Baby. Did I love it? Let's say I liked it a lot. I know it's unfair to compare it to his earlier adaptation of Hairspray but it's hard not to. To be really fair, for one thing, it is still in previews, and two, we already knew the entire score of Hairspray before we saw it. It's very funny though and very entertaining, sexy rather than romantic. It's the Drapes against the Squares. West Side Story-ish. The play opens at the Anti-Polio Picnic where prominent community leader and socially conscious Mrs. Vernon-Williams is hosting the picnic where they are offering polio shots. Enter the Drapes, the "bad" kids from the other side of the tracks, with their leader, Cry Baby, a nickname given to him because he has been unable to cry since his parents were unjustly executed as communist traitors. (This is so John Waters.) It's love at first sight when Cry Baby lays eyes on Mrs. Vernon-Williams' granddaughter, Allison, who instantly feels the same way about him. She calls herself a good girl who doesn't want to be. There are some hilarious lines with references to the 50's which were probably lost on the younger audience; polio, iron lungs, fallout shelters. At the picnic they wheel out a guy in an iron lung who sings blithefully "if only I'd had that shot" and then they shove him and his iron lung off stage. Baltimore, a Square, country club member and "good" boy, sings a song about being squeaky clean and talks about the club's fallout shelter and that, like the pool, you have to be a member of the country club to use it. There's a dance at the country club where Mrs. Vernon-Williams hands out gas masks and the Squares proceed to dance in their party dresses and suits wearing the gas masks. There's also a dance number where Cry Baby and the Drapes are in jail for allegedly setting a fire, and they're making license plates which they use as tap shoes. It was brilliant. And I have to mention a song Cry Baby sings to Allison "Girl, Can I Kiss You With Tongue?" to which my daughter said out loud, "oh, that's disturbing" to howls from the audience around us.
This is James Snyder's Broadway debut as Cry Baby. I thought he was good in an Elvis impersonator sort of way but I can't say he knocked my socks off. I'd say he is destined for stardom though because of his pretty boy looks. Elizabeth Stanley as Allison didn't do much for me. I mean she was professional and all but she looked too old for the part and didn't have that extra something that draws you into the character. The supporting cast was outstanding though, especially Chester Gregory II as Dupree (previously in Hairspray as Seaweed), Cry Baby's best friend who is a Little Richard parody, Alli Mauzey as Lenora, the girl who is missing a few cards from her deck who is madly in love with Cry Baby and stalks him throughout the play. Her solo "A Screw Loose" was hysterical with the last line being "I'll be here if you need a loose screw". But for me the best of all was Harriet Harris as Mrs. Vernon-Williams who played the 50's grande dame superbly. If you've ever seen the American tv show Frasier she played Fraiser's (Kelsey Grammer) agent, Bebe Glazer. She's hilarious in anything I've ever seen her in.
By the way, all preview tickets are $54 (27 pounds). They came up with this price because the play takes place in 1954 Baltimore, John Water's hometown.
I think I probably would have loved Cry Baby a lot more if I'd seen it before I saw Hairspray. I was expecting it to be as good and although it was delightful, it wasn't in a class with Hairspray but it was certainly worth seeing, especially at the discount price.
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