John Waters is an artist with a storied career known for having continually controversial and envelope-pushing work. However, he has stated that Hairspray (1988) was his most provocative. What it lacks in gross-out gags, it more than makes up for decades later with the Marc Shaiman-penned soundtrack that would go on to win the Best Musical Tony Award and be one of the most popular shows of the 21st century. That raises an interesting question. What is it about Hairspray the musical that has appealed to so many people for almost 20 years? Is it that Tracy Turnblad is a hilarious cut-up, or that the 60s style is infectiously recreated? That’s where things start, but it’s more than the artificial surface. It’s what the show ultimately means in 2023.
Whereas many could accuse Hairspray of hopping on a bandwagon, it actually came out long before the recent political controversies. In a time of “Don’t Say Gay” and Critical Race Theory debates, there is something that shines through in the fringes of the story’s intent. This isn’t just a show about a teenager going on TV to sing some upbeat numbers. This is a greater commentary on figures who have often been sidelined in media finally getting their moment to celebrate. Given that a central figure, Edna Turnblad, is played by RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant Nina West, there’s even the implicit middle finger to anti-drag rhetoric. For those who have felt oppressed lately and feel like it’s all a bummer, there’s a reminder that Hairspray is waiting to welcome you in. Even as hokey as it seems now, “You Can’t Stop the Beat” is a closer that lives up to its message.
The recent stop at The Segerstrom Center for the Performing Arts is a great reminder of why this show endears. It’s more than pandering. While it’s true that characters range from fat girls to drag queens, juvenile delinquents, and the central Black characters symbolizing Civil Rights, they all come together to have fun in the face of oppression. They don’t stand for the figures who hold them back in Baltimore. They are going to be the cool kids who know all of the dazzling dance numbers and tell the best jokes. The villains are the airheads who don’t know what a double entendre is, who win ridiculous contests and throw their power around to hold onto their perceived control. Everything is big and colorful, accentuated with over the top accents and laughs that hide jokes closer to Waters’ campier work. It’s a tribute to the auteur as well as various B-Movie genres that he likely watched obsessively in his youth, creating one of the greatest pastiches of contemporary musical theater.
What helps is how shamelessly big this whole production is. Given that the central outcasts are all celebrated through their madcap subplots, it’s amazing how the setting juggles between Tracy’s (Niki Metcalf) struggles and the greater themes of being celebrated for your identity. It’s a work that knows how to turn a number like “Mama I’m a Good Girl Now” into a six character song that pops stylishly between harmonies and individual angst. It all feels effortless, and it creates this subversion of girl group ethos in such a way that one can’t help but smile. These are teenage girls who are not afraid to have a sexual curiosity. It’s still naïve and simple, but at the same time, it’s a nice attack on the expectations of the era’s squeaky clean image.
Maybe it helps that before it wants to be a greater commentary that finds Edna being celebrated with a fabulous makeover, it’s first and foremost just a celebration of the medium. Every practical set change has a fun sight gag to accompany it. The appeal is at times nostalgic while also presenting something unexpected and new. It’s dirty around the edges, but never gets to be toxic. Sure, Edna has a chance to play one of the most surprising Broadway-bound characters of the early 20th century as she makes crass jokes about her sex life, but it’s buried inside something endearing. An extended number where she dances with her husband Wilbur (Ralph Prentice Daniel) presents one of the boldest gambits in the show. It’s not so much because “(You're) Timeless to Me” is oddly minimalistic, but because of how it paints their love as normal, where they’re allowed to a number that wouldn’t be out of place in a Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie. There is a level of acceptance in the show that is never commented on that is sure to make certain audience members feel recognized and not pandered to.
All in all, Hairspray benefits from being a fantastic show with some of the most impeccable style the stage has seen. Even if it’s a Civil Rights story at its core, it’s also one that manages to ask why most of these characters can’t be appreciated once in a while? Why can’t these figures often reduced to pratfalls and ridicule be given sympathy? Waters may not necessarily seem like the most commercial artist, but there’s something about this work that stands as the perfect example of what he stood for. It was about breaking down the door so that everyone could have a little bit of the action. What ends up happening is raucous, irreverent, but all in all a necessary respite for what the modern era needs. In a time when conservatives are fighting to keep these characters from living their best lives, Waters reminds us that they’ll persevere. As cliché as it sounds, you can’t stop the beat. Nobody can.
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