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PLAYBILL ON OPENING NIGHT: Cry-Baby — Hairspraying Pompadours and Ponytails
By Harry Haun
25 Apr 2008
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John Waters, James Snyder, Harriet Harris, Elizabeth Stanley, Christopher J. Hanke, Lacey Kohl, Richard Poe, Mark Brokaw, Rob Ashford, David Javerbaum and Adam Schlesinger, and Mark O'Donnell with Thomas Meehan.
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| photo by Aubrey Reuben | Meet the first-nighters at the opening of Broadway's Cry-Baby.
The new entry is a one-decade step back in time — to the greasy '50s, a time of petticoats and polio panics, of rebels with and without causes. Essentially, it's Capulets and Montagues all over again, only in Baltimore of the '50s they went under the gang handles of The Squares and The Drapes. Our title character, who hasn't shed a tear since his parents were executed as Commies (hence, the nickname), has fallen into scruffy company that affects bad manners, black leather and duck tails. Naturally, he zones in on Allison, a white-bread society deb longing to be bad. If you caught Grease or All Shook Up, you understand the dynamic that Waters playfully had play here. The opposites attract and meld.
The movie writer-director with the pencil-thin mustache hovered expectantly over the delivery of his brand-new bouncing Broadway baby. At the theatre, before the show and at intermission, he was omnipresent, but at the after-party at Mansion he vanished into the inner sanctum of the V.I.P. room with his original (and now radically made-over) Tracy Turnblad, Ricki Lake, never to be seen again.
That was where most of the creators and celebs held up and spent the party. A few — Harriet Harris, director Mark Brokaw, co-scripter Tom Meehan, composer Adam Schlesinger and ensemble member Nick Blaemire — never got the memo that the press was waiting and missed their photo ops altogether. Blaemire, who plays a member of the evil barber-shop quartet in the show, was one of five performers marking their Broadway debuts. It's his first Broadway debut of the month: he'll make his bow as a Broadway songwriter when his Glory Days opens May 6 at Circle in the Square. Andrew Call, who was Cry-Baby's understudy and played Skippy Wagstaff, the guy in the iron lung, just went into a three-month leave of absence from the show, so he could play one of the leads in Glory Days.
Meanwhile, downstairs from the V.I.P. room, the entire first floor of Mansion (where The Spice Girls once reveled) had taken a deep dive in taste. For that one night only, the place was transformed into an exactly-as-you-might-remember-it facsimile of a Baltimore high-school cafeteria circa, of course, the 1950s. Meatloaf and potatoes and dryyyy peanut-butter sandwiches were the specialty of the house, all served by bossy cafeteria help who'd scold you if you helped yourself. (The ratty hairnet, I thought, was a nice touch.) Duff Goldman of the Food Network's "Ace of Cakes" created a cake for dessert.
The first-nighters made their way to the bar where, Square or Drape, you could pick your poison. You were a delinquent Drape if you had cold beer in a cup or went the absinthe route (the "Cry-Baby's Lucid Dream" or the "Give It to Me Straight, Judge!"). The highfalutin Squares had their choice of red or white wine, champagne and a vodka concoction called "RSVP Charm School Punch."
At various corners of the room were go-go guys in prison stripes or painted ladies lounging sluttily. And, needless to add, a full blast of rock permeated the place.
The one sanctuary from the sound rape was a closed-off, breeze-free room on the second floor, above the bacchanal in progress, and this was where the stars were marched to meet the sweaty press.
James Snyder, the Cry-Baby in question, was one of those officially turning into a Broadway performer with the opening-night performance, and he arrived in a powerhouse fashion — by kicking his way through a breakaway sign — but the countdown to his entrance, he confessed, was nerve-frying: "I stand for about the first five minutes of the show behind this sign so I get to hear everything that's going on before I make my big entrance. Well, I couldn't hear a single note that was being played I was so nervous. My heart was just pounding. It was like this huge rush. And it was fantastic."
The title role in Waters' 1990 flick took Johnny Depp straight to screen stardom (for what it's worth, he is now playing Dillinger in Michael Mann's "Public Enemy"). Was he a daunting act for Snyder to follow? "It's definitely big shoes to fill," the actor freely admitted, "but it's a path I'm ready to follow. I've always looked up to him so just to be able to sorta take the same steps in such a way, is just great."
His favorite moment on stage is the "Jailyard Jubilee" number, which will induce apt memories of "Jailhouse Rock" and Elvis. "It's the one point in the show where we know the audience is going to be bowled over, so everyone's hungry to get to that point and show the energy and life this show has."
One thing he wasn't expecting was the traditional Gypsy robe ceremony that occurred right before the show, welcoming the newcomers to Broadway. "They said, 'Everyone who's making their Broadway debut' and I stepped out with four others." Another of the four was one of the handmaidens from Hell from his grungy entourage: Tory Ross as the mean-inside-and-out "Hatchet-Face."
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Kerry Butler and Jackie Hoffman, Nikki Blonsky, Ricki Lake, Johnny Galecki, producer Elan McAllister and designer Chris March, Adam Duritz, Heidi Blickenstaff and Jerry Mitchell with Michele Lynch.
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| photos by Aubrey Reuben |
Lacey Kohl, who plays wayward Wanda, arrived glamorously gowned in designer duds. You had to look for the little touch of trash — and it was there. "Because the dress is so long, I had to get massive platform shoes so I ended up going to a strip store, a porn store, to get them," she confessed sheepishly, adding redemptively: "My mom and dad came with me and helped me pick them out. Actually, they're party-festive and very comfortable."
Clearly, she'd put some thought into her opening-night attire. "I've thought about this from when we knew we'd be coming in, When I got the show, I was, like, 'What am I going to wear on opening night?'"
Finally, an actress whose first question isn't "What's my motivation?" Kohl laughed. "Well, the motivation is there — always there. My character is fearless. She's this free spirit — naughty but loyal. She's fiercely loyal to her friends. I love that aspect of her because I have that in my own life."
As Allison, the Baltimore Helen of Troy who causes this tug of war between the Drapes and the Squares, Elizabeth Stanley admitted it's the right spot to be in. "She's so fun. Falling in love is one of the best things in life, and of course to get to play that out every night is really a blast." In particular, she enjoys playing with the dichotomy of a good girl wanting to be bad. "I think it equals human." Continued...
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