‘MEAN GIRLS’ – SINGING, DANCING AND BACKSTABBING ON THE GREAT WHITE WAY

Erika Henningsen and company. Photo: Joan Marcus

HENRY EDWARDS - New York - 4/15/2018

When I arrived at the August Wilson Theatre to attend “Mean Girls,” Tina Fey's musical adaptation of her 2004 big-screen comedy of the same name, it was clear the crowd was there to have the time of their lives and wasn’t shy about letting you know it.

I’m hard pressed to remember another audience dressed in tees emblazoned with favorite lines of dialogue (“You Can’t Sit with Us,” “You Go, Glen Coco!” “On Wednesdays we wear pink”) before they’d seen the show.

“Mean Girls” is such a must-see it hasn’t played to an empty seat since its first pre-Broadway performance in Washington, DC, on Oct. 31.

That’s what happens when your source material is one of the exceptionally rare movies that gains in popularity year after year.

Who could have guessed the sassy and sharp 2004 movie was destined to become a lasting cultural icon—or frankly that it was remarkable in any way?

“Mean Girls,” after all, is a fairly standard teen-angst comedy that, per usual, envisions high school as a treacherous, emotionally charged, competitive jungle. The genre dates back to the similar but much darker cult classic, “Heathers,” and the sweeter-spirited John Hughes movies, not to mention TV shows like “Freaks and Geeks” and the forgotten “Square Pegs.” And of course, there’s always “Grease.”

Facebook was founded just two months before its release, enabling the nascent Buzzfeed generation eagerly to memorialize Tina Fey’s hilarious dialogue in GIF form.

Everyone has his or her time tested favorite lines and before we go any further, here are some of mine:

“Somebody wrote in that book that I’m lying about being a virgin   because I use super jumbo tampons, but I can’t help it if I’ve got a heavy flow and a wide set vagina!”

“If you’re from Africa, why are you white?”

            “Gretchen, I’m sorry I laughed at you that time you got diarrhea at Barnes & Nobles. And         I’m sorry for telling everyone about it. And I’m sorry for repeating it now.”

            “We only carry sizes one, three and five. You could try Sears.”

            “Made out with a hot dog? Oh my God that was one time!”

            “Oh my god, Danny Devito! I love your work!”

The original fans are fourteen years older and ready and willing to pay Broadway’s steep ticket prices.  But their devotion raised an overriding question for the creators of the musical: how much dare you tamper with something so beloved?

In a nutshell, the answer is not much.

Fey’s adaptation is equipped with 18 workmanlike songs composed by her husband, three-time Emmy winner Jeff Richmond, and lyricist Nell Benjamin (“Legally Blonde”), and direction and choreography by Broadway’s reining genius, highly energized two-time Tony winner Casey Nicholaw (“The Drowsy Chaperone,” “Spamalot,” “The Book of Mormon”).

While the opportunity was at hand to dish up a wealth of theatrical surprises and riotous satire, that’s not what happened. Imagination has been replaced by slickness, resulting in a show that’s very entertaining, but hard to remember.

 Fey’s book closely follows the script of the original film with updates primarily designed to utilize social media (smartphones, selfies, Instagram) which did not exist in 2004.

That is clear from the minute you take your seat and come face to face with the dazzling onstage video wallpaper of annotated yearbook photographs representing the title characters’ “burn book” of rumors, stories, and gossip about their fellow classmates.

Cruel phrases that only can spring to life in the feverish mind of a mean girl adorn the class portraits, and they are very funny.

 My favorite? “Only made the team because his mother slept with the coach.”

The show begins with two students at microphones welcoming us to high school. We’re incoming freshmen, and know-it-all worldly seniors, Janis (Barrett Wilbert Weed) and Damian (Grey Henson), step forward to serve as our guides.

Punkish disaffected art nerd Janis and quick witted “almost too gay to function” (and gayer than ever in this version) Damian are teen misfits in the classic tradition of the misfits that inhabit virtually every high school movie (and usually portrayed by Michael Cera). Not only are they outsiders, but also proud of it.

In their opening number, "A Cautionary Tale," they inform us they plan to relate a cautionary tale about their friend Cady and “how far you would go to be popular and hot.”

The tale, says Damian, revolves around “fear and lust and pride! … Corruption and a betrayal! … And getting hit by a bus!”

Sashaying, tap dancing (and chubby) whirligig Grey Henson and deadpan Barrett Wilbert Weed are absolutely terrific from the get-go.

Scott Pask’s set consists largely of a massive wall of digital screens, providing the perfect canvas for Finn Ross and Adam Young’s breathtakingly speedy video design. In far less than the flash of an eye, their pixel art allows us to travel from a seemingly infinite series of locations, classroom, school cafeteria, classroom, gymnasium, bedroom, mall, chat room littered with tweets and Kenyan savannah, among them.

The performances and set design set the tone of the show, a blend of engagingly exaggerated stereotypes and flat, brighter than bright comic strip world.

For the benefit of anyone who has somehow missed the movie, our heroine, fresh faced, sixteen-year-old Cady Heron (fresh faced, big voiced Erika Henningsen), was raised in Kenya, home-schooled by her zoologist parents, and longs to have human friends.

To her delight, her parents have lost their funding and are moving back to suburban Chicago, allowing their daughter to transform into a typical American teen.

Upon enrolling in North Shore High School, an upper-middle-class shark tank in the Chicago suburbs, Cady is viewed an outsider and everyone ignores her. Sensing her aloneness, dedicated eccentrics Janis and Damian volunteer to be her starter friends and show her the ropes.

To the tune of the spirited “Where Do You Belong?” they introduce Cady to the school clique, oversexed band nerds, math geeks led by nerdish Mathlete captain Kevin Gnapoor (Cheech Manohar) – they are "social suicide" says Damian, jocks, and the like.

TAYLOR LOUDERMAN AS REGINA GEORGE AND THE CAST OF 'MEAN GIRLS'

Director/choreographer Nicholaw is the acknowledged master of the big Broadway musical that is celebratory and satirical with its tongue often stuck in its cheek.  His opening number, a parody of “The Lion King,” (not the most original idea), suggests a measure of confusion about whether “Mean Girls” is meant to be a somewhat tired representative of the traditional Broadway mold.  But “Where do You Belong?” and its spectacular cafeteria tray dance step shenanigans and Damian’s fearless tapping is pure joy.

“Back me up, Show Choir!” he shouts, and the cast turns Fosse, revealing Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen T-shirts beneath their jackets or button-downs.

Nicholaw’s affection for Broadway and its particular geekiness works perfectly.

How do you top the number?

That’d when North Shore’s reigning clique, the Plastics, makes its appearance.

Don’t look at them!” Damien warns Cady as queen bee Regina (Taylor Louderman) and her minions, insecure, desperate-to-please Gretchen Wieners (Ashley Park, a delight) and dimmer-than-dim Karen Smith (Kate Rockwell, equally hilarious) take center stage.

Regina, blonde, tousle-haired, by nature a killer and (of course) lit in pink, tells one and all, she is a "massive deal. Fear me. Love me. Stand and stare at me… I am the prettiest poison you've ever seen. I never weigh more than one-fifteen."

Louderman sizzles with malicious intent as the mean girl you love to hate, Rockwell is a scream as a dimwit with a keen awareness of her empty-headedness, and Park is the perfect mix of anxiety and melancholy (“Where is my mind? Where does it end? Maybe I need to find a better friend?” she reflects).

Taking time off from their traditional exclusivity and viewing newbie Cady as the perfect plaything for her mind games, Regina condescendingly invites the newbie to sit at their cafeteria table on a probationary basis provided she adheres to the dress code.

“Take their offer,” urges Janis, who’s got an ax to grind with Regina, “and come back and tell us every stupid moron thing they said.” 

“Mean Girls” proceeds to trace Cady’s journey from tentative spy to kiss up (it turns out she has a primal desire to be popular; it seems every high school student is desperate to fit in, even by those who claim they don’t want—and even more so by those who already do).

Along the way, she falls for Regina’s ex, Aaron Samuels (a forthright Kyle Selig), who sits in front of her in calculus class. By far, math is her best subject, but that doesn’t stop her from playing dumb to get his attention. (She winds up failing math.)

"Ex-boyfriends are off-limits to friends. That's just, like, the rules of feminism," cautions Regina.

Rejecting Damian and Janis for Regina, Cady becomes a confused and corrupted very mean mean girl before eventually evolving into a chastened and mature individual capable of seeing the redeeming qualities in everyone.

Since there is little in the way of character development and the songs tend to hammer away at your consciousness, the show grows wearisome. But half way through the second act, it turns into a terrific musical that proceeds to deliver a surprisingly palatable series of life lessons about being your best real self, abandoning false values and supporting one another rather than tearing  each other down.

Cady grows up just a little, sacrifices just a little, and becomes a better person while also snagging the token hot guy at the end.

No matter their social standing, even the meanest offenders also turns out to be redeemable. Even though everyone has felt "personally victimized by Regina," most also admit to committing similar "girl-on-girl crime."

"I See Stars" brings the show to a touching conclusion without drowning it (or us) in treacle: "I see stars / You shine as bright as day / I will look out for you / We’ll light each other’s way / You’re all stars."

Nice.

“Mean Girls” is entertaining, in fact it’s often very entertaining, but not enough of it is unforgettable. A 97-minute movie has been transformed into an evening two-and-a-half hours in length, awfully long for a cartoon that gives the paying customers exactly what they want, no more, no less. 

You will love it.

ErGrey Henson, Barrett Wilbert Weed and Erika Henningsen. Photo: Joan Marcus.

“Mean Girls” is enjoying an open run at the August Wilson Theatre. For tickets, call 800-745-3000 or visit:  MEAN GIRLS ON BROADWAY