What do working ladies need? In line with the brand new musical “Working Girl,” primarily based on Mike Nichols’ 1988 movie, they largely need to sing by-product ’80 pop songs and humor themselves with broad comedian shtick.
The query that vexed me as I left La Jolla Playhouse, the place “Working Girl” is receiving its world premiere, is why should musicals so typically cheapen their supply materials? The manufacturing, directed by La Jolla Playhouse outgoing creative director Christopher Ashley, makes musical comedy seem to be the crudest of artwork types.
I had excessive expectations for this present. The creators, Cyndi Lauper (music and lyrics) and Theresa Rebeck (guide), appeared ideally suited to the job of turning this cinematic fairy story a couple of Staten Island secretary named Tess who fights for her place within the clubby world of company finance into a fascinating musical. However commercialism has received out over artwork, which is to say obviousness has run roughshod over subtlety.
I beloved Nichols’ movie, written by Kevin Wade, when it first got here out. However I used to be reluctant to problem my first impression. I didn’t need to discover out that what I assumed was a terrific comedy was truly the product of a specific New York zeitgeist and an period of Hollywood moviemaking that’s lengthy gone. I hadn’t seen the film in 37 years once I watched it once more earlier than touring to La Jolla, and I used to be completely satisfied to find that the film has retained its freshness.
Nichols elicits magnificent performances from his leads, Melanie Griffith, Harrison Ford and Sigourney Weaver. I don’t know if I’ve ever preferred any of them as a lot as I do right here. A younger, trim Alec Baldwin, channeling John Travolta in “Saturday Night Fever” and the Brando-Dean instance that paved the best way, performs a male-chauvinist heel with charming, hedonistic dedication.
There are missteps. Kevin Spacey chews the surroundings as a finance bro seeking to exploit Tess’ need to get forward. Joan Cusack is marvelous regardless of the rainbow eyeshadow and hearth hose of hairspray that flip her character right into a cartoon.
Minor elements are given sneaky dimension. There’s divine Olympia Dukakis as a personnel director who turns into Tess’ sly ally and Amy Aquino, who seems on the finish of the movie, lending grit to an assistant on an analogous upward trajectory. Nichols’ genius lies within the individualized textures he savors in characters who’re concurrently sorts and one-of-a-kind creations.
That contact of quirky singularity is all however lacking in Ashley’s generic manufacturing. Each the writing and the path deal with the characters like strolling gags. Nichols acknowledged that comedy is funnier when there are human contradictions and conflicts. Weaver’s Katharine, the villain of the piece who steals Tess’ ingenious enterprise thought, is as over-the-top as she is psychologically and morally cagey. She poses as a mentor to Tess, however she’s not about to let some lowly secretary maintain her from popping out on prime in a person’s world. Weaver masterly balances each side of the equation.
Joanna “JoJo” Levesque, who performs Tess, and Lesley Rodriguez Kritzer, who performs Katharine, are the standouts in Ashley’s solid. Levesque, who had a No. 1 track on Billboard’s Prime 40 Chart and has among the similar lonely striving as Griffith‘s unforgettable Tess, is the main reason to see this production. Lauper’s lyrics permit Tess to get in contact with the sentiments behind her dream, her dedication to not be outlined by the place she’s from or how males hungrily take a look at her.
Sadly, her character not solely has to cope with a devious boss, a shameless patriarchy and the snobbery of the ruling class but in addition a musical that speeds by way of a busy plot with clownish strokes. Kritzer is disappointingly given comedian scraps that make her character’s reappearances at all times seem to be an after-thought.
Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer, heart, with the solid of the musical “Working Girl.”
(Wealthy Soublet II)
The rating is known as a assortment of unmemorable however weirdly familiar-sounding songs. Lauper received a Tony for her work on “Kinky Boots,” which has higher particular person numbers however equally lacks a compositional by way of line. Right here, the music doesn’t a lot inform the story as coloration within the ambiance with the identical heavy-handedness because the garish make-up and poufy hairdos of Tess’ fellow S.I. commuters on this — pardon the pun — ferry story.
A lot of the songs for Tess appear as if Lauper wrote them for herself. At any second, Levesque appears liable to interrupt out into “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” Her vocal gildings uncannily evoke Lauper’s. She would make the character her personal if solely the fabric would give her half an opportunity.
There are echoes of Run-D.M.C. and a few enviornment rock prospers within the rating. Mick (Joey Taranto), Tess’ boyfriend, a galumphing marriage ceremony singer who seems as if he’s sporting a Van Halen Halloween costume, is saddled with embarrassing rock numbers that made me marvel if AI could be able to extra originality.
Joanna “JoJo” Levesque and Anoop Desai within the musical “Working Girl.”
(Wealthy Soublet II)
Jack, the funding dealer who groups up with Tess in additional methods than one, is performed by Anoop Desai in a dashing however theatrically underemployed efficiency. Each time he’s given a track, it’s a reduction that he’s not being ignored but in addition a reminder that his character isn’t properly built-in into Rebeck’s compressed and hasty guide.
The tweaks Rebeck makes to the plot don’t strike me as notably useful to the storytelling. Within the film, Tess gently fends off Mick’s proposal after she has walked in on him making love to a different lady. Within the musical, the dishonest scene entails a pal and occurs after she has matter-of-factly turned him down in public. As an alternative of tinkering across the edges, Rebeck ought to have spent extra time reimagining the present’s primary construction.
Joanna “JoJo” Levesque, left, and Ashley Blanchet within the musical “Working Girl.”
(Wealthy Soublet II)
Ashley Blanchet‘s Cyn, Tess’ finest buddy (performed by Cusack within the movie), stands out from the secretarial pack. However this pivotal friendship is subordinated to the group dynamic. Tess strikes with a troop of kooky outer-borough girls, leaving the musical with treasured few intimate moments of considerate stillness. Sarah O’Gleby’s hustling choreography compounds the sense of frenzy.
A picture of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge is integral to the scenography of the collective AMP that includes Erica Jiaying Zhang. New York is projected all through the present, however the GPS coordinates are extra exactly these of an American musical that has misplaced its approach attempting to enchantment to the bottom frequent denominator.
‘Working Girl’
When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays. 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 1 and 7 p.m. Sundays. Through Dec. 14
Where: La Jolla Playhouse’s Mandell Weiss Theatre, 2910 La Jolla Village Drive, La Jolla
Tickets: $30-$154
Contact: lajollaplayhouse.org/present/working-girl
Operating time: 2 hours, quarter-hour (together with one intermission)
