Catch Me If You Can

Catch Me If You Can, at Broadway's Neil Simon Theatre
Gratuitous Violins rating: **1/2 out of ****

I had such high hopes for Catch Me If You Can. I adore Hairspray and I was excited to hear a new score from Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman.

Well, I wish things had turned out differently. While Catch Me If You Can was entertaining, it didn't make much of an impact. Except for one production number, the musical flew by without my feeling truly engaged by the story or the score.

Of course, you don't go to the theatre in a vacuum. It was the last show in my New York City trip so maybe I was a bit tired. Also, I was sitting behind someone who, unfortunately, blocked my view of the stage. I was constantly tilting my head from side to side. The very nice house manager moved me to another seat for Act II but by then, it was too late.

Catch Me If You Can is based the exploits of Frank Abagnale Jr., who conned millions of dollars, mostly through forging checks, while posing as a doctor, a lawyer and airline pilot until the FBI finally caught up with him. Steven Spielberg made Abagnale's story into a movie in 2002 starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

As Abagnale, Aaron Tveit moves around the stage nicely and he has a powerful Broadway voice and he's quite handsome. A real triple threat! Unfortunately, Tveit's character never made a strong impression with me. I realize a con man is going to be somewhat elusive but he wasn't all that interesting.

I'm not sure it's totally his fault. I wish Terrence McNally, who wrote the book, had included some more witty, snappy dialogue that really made the characters memorable. The supporting roles seemed underdeveloped, too. Kerry Butler is sweet as Brenda, Abagnale's love interest, but she came and went quickly.

Part of the problem may be the framing device - Abagnale is narrating a TV variety show about his life, so the musical is looking backward. While the opening number, "Live in Living Color," was energetic and it was nice to see and hear a big orchestra onstage, I don't think it served as a great introduction.

The second scene, where we meet the teenage Abagnale and his parents, and get some idea of what his childhood was like, might have been a better way to begin. Knowing a little bit about where Abagnale came from got me much more interested in him. And I liked the duet with Tom Wopat as Frank Sr. - "The Pinstripes Are All That They See."

But even in a show I found disappointing there's always something to savor.

For me, the highlight of Catch Me If You Can was Norbert Leo Butz. I've heard my theatergoing friends praise this Tony-winning performer but I'd never had a chance to see him onstage. He was terrific as the rumpled FBI agent Carl Hanratty, who's in dogged pursuit of Abagnale.

Butz has the advantage of Jerry Mitchell's best choreography for the show, leading a chorus of singing and dancing FBI agents in the hilarious "Don't Break the Rules." It's a terrific number. I wish the rest of the musical had been that good.

So long, teenage Baltimore

Of all the shows closing on Broadway this month, including nine that play their final performances today, I think every theatre fan probably has one that they're saddest to see go. For me, it's Hairspray, which ends a 6 1/2-year run at the Neil Simon Theatre this afternoon.

I first saw Hairspray on tour, in May 2007, and I loved the energetic choreography, catchy songs that capture an era and moving story about teenager Tracy Turnblad's effort to integrate a dance show in 1962 Baltimore. For me, Hairspray illuminates American history in way that's never preachy, always entertaining. It's about the possibility of change, a reminder of our struggle to become a more just society.

How much do I love this show? Well, I still have the confetti that dropped from the ceiling at the end of that performance and the Broadway cast recording has been in pretty steady rotation on my iPod ever since that afternoon.

Since then, I've had two terrific Hairspray-related experiences. The first came in May, when I met Scott Wittman who, with Marc Shaiman, his creative and life partner of 30 years, wrote the score. And in November, I had a chance to see the musical on Broadway, with the amazing, wonderful, hilarious Harvey Fierstein reprising his Tony-winning role as Edna Turnblad. As wonderful as it is to see something new, I loved sitting in the audience anticipating every scene, every song, every laugh.

I think my fellow blogger Patrick Lee, of Just Shows to Go You, who paid a visit to Hairspray last month, captures exactly how I felt: "I spent the first act with the wildly enthusiastic audience marveling at how feel-good a well-directed, delightfully choreographed and terrifically scored big Broadway musical can be when everyone is on their game."

In this case, everyone includes, in addition to the composers, choreographer Jerry Mitchell, book writers Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan, director Jack O'Brien, costume designer William Ivey Long, set designer David Rockwell, hair and wig designer Paul Huntley, and of course, filmmaker John Waters, who drew on his childhood in Baltimore for the original 1988 movie.

While some movie-to-stage adaptations I've seen have felt a little flat, to me, this one hits the mark. I think it's a combination of music that captures the era, a compelling story and memorable characters. The more shows I see the more I realize that those three things aren't easy to accomplish.

After a tryout in Seattle, Hairspray begin previews on July 18, 2002 and opened on Broadway on Aug. 15. By the time it closes, it will have played 31 previews and 2,641 regular performances. Hairspray won eight Tony awards, including Best Musical and for its score, book, costume design and direction. In addition, Fierstein, Marissa Jaret Winokur and Dick Latessa won Tonys for their performances as Edna, Tracy and Wilber Turnblad.

The musical spawned a 2007 movie and now, there are plans for a sequel, with Shaiman, Wittman and Waters all involved. What I'm hoping for is that Hairspray has long and successful life in high schools and community theatres around the United States.

The specifics of Hairspray's story are fictitious. But I love the way it truly evokes the spirit of the early 1960s, a time of optimism and hope, when Americans confronted the stain of segregation and tried to make this country a more equal and just place for all its citizens. It's about standing up for what you believe in and the power of an individual to effect change.

When I think about the 1960s, the music is one of the things that comes to mind. At it's most basic, Hairspray is about the power of music to break barriers and bring people together. For nearly seven years, the show has brought audiences together on Broadway.

And while I enjoy the original movie and the movie musical, there's nothing like seeing this joyous show live, in a crowded theatre, with an audience laughing and cheering and being moved by the story. The beat stops on Broadway today, but it will go on.

Welcome to the end of the '60s

All history buffs have their passions and mine happens to be the 1960s, especially the antiwar and civil rights movements. While my interest isn't as great as it once was, a good '60s story still gets to me. So this week, in some ways a culmination of that much maligned and misunderstood decade, has been pretty dramatic.

And on Wednesday night, there'll be one more bit of 1960s-tinged drama. I'll be in the audience at Broadway's Neil Simon Theatre watching Hairspray, with Harvey Fierstein reprising his Tony-winning role as the oversized and over-stressed housewife Edna Turnblad. Fierstein's come back to take a victory lap with Hairspray, which ends its 6 1/2-year Broadway run Jan. 18.

I've loved the musical ever since I saw it on tour last year. The book, by Thomas Meehan and Mark O'Donnell, based on John Waters' movie, does such a terrific job bringing to life the struggle to end segregation. It's done in a way that doesn't seem preachy or overly sentimental. The effort of white teenager Tracy Turnblad to integrate a Baltimore teen dance show, so that black teens could dance every week, makes learning about history entertaining - fun even.

Plus, Hairspray has some great pop tunes by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman that really capture the decade's early years - a time when America was on the cusp of change. The original Broadway cast recording is one of my favorites.

When I saw the show on tour, one song really got to me. Yvette Monique Clark's rendition of "I know where I've been" was so powerful, so emotional. The song, with lyrics "There's a dream in the future, there's a struggle that we have yet to win," truly evokes the civil-rights anthems of the 1960s. At the end, black kids and white kids, standing from one end of the stage to another, are holding hands. It was the first time I ever felt like giving a song a standing ovation.

With the election of Barack Obama, I suspect hearing that song again will be even more poignant, By the end of Hairspray, I fully expect to be a wet, blubbery mess. (Must remember to pack extra tissues.)

It's kind of fitting that Hairspray will close the same week of Obama's inauguration as our nation's 44th president. In some ways, they're bookends for the 1960s. And as op-ed columnist Gail Collins wrote in The New York Times this week, the baby boom generation deserves a round of applause:

"The boomers didn’t win any wars and that business about being self-involved was not entirely unfounded. On the other hand, they made the nation get serious about the idea of everybody being created equal. And now American children are going to grow up unaware that there’s anything novel in an African-American president or a woman running for the White House. We’ll settle for that."

So I'm looking forward to seeing Hairspray on stage for a second time, when I'll applaud and likely shed a few tears as I watch Tracy, Edna and company take a well-deserved bow.

A closing bounce for Hairspray

Wow, talk about mixed emotions.

Now it's official. Hairspray, the 2003 Tony winner for Best Musical, will close on Broadway Jan. 4, ending its run of 6 1/2 years with a total of 2,672 performances at the Neil Simon Theatre. But - this is the great part - Harvey Fierstein, who won a Tony award for playing Edna Turnblad, will reprise the role starting Nov. 11.

For a whole host of reasons, many of which I've mentioned before, Hairspray is one of my favorite musicals. (Some of those reasons include: my interest in the 1960s and the civil-rights movement, my love of catchy pop scores, the fact that Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan's Tony-winning book, based on the John Waters movie, is truly integrated, with substantive roles for white and black actors.) But I've only seen it on tour, never on Broadway.

In May, I met Scott Wittman, who, with Marc Shaiman, his creative and life partner of nearly 30 years, wrote the Tony-winning score for Hairspray. He was standing outside the stage door after A Catered Affair, waiting for Harvey Fierstein. When I told him how much I loved Hairspray, he graciously thanked me, then pointed to Harvey and said he was big part of the show's success.

Well, I have to respectfully disagree with Mr. Wittman on one count. I think Hairspray's songs, memorable characters and inspiring story make it pretty terrific on its own, even without a star. But I'm so excited that now, I'll have a chance to see what he meant.

Hairspray - the sequel

Apparently we have not heard the last of Tracy Turnblad. New Line Cinema, which produced the movie version of the Broadway musical Hairspray, has asked John Waters to write a sequel. The plot is supposed to pick up the story of Tracy and her family in Baltimore in 1962, after the resolution of the first movie, in which they help integrate a teen dance program, the Corny Collins Show.

Director Adam Shankman told Variety: "I never thought of musicals as franchises, but it certainly worked with High School Musical, and the idea of working with that cast again, and creating new material and music, is a dream come true."

The first Hairspray, which came out in 2007 and was based on Waters' 1988 movie, did pretty well at the box office, earning more than $200 million worldwide. Sales of the DVD and soundtrack have also been strong. Plus, it got pretty good reviews. Metacritic gave it a total of 81 out of a possible 100 points on the critical acclaim scale. It's nice to see a movie musical be considered a commercial and critical hit.

The studio is aiming for a release in July 2010, and is hoping to snag the same cast, including John Travolta, Christopher Walken, Michelle Pfeiffer, James Marsden, Zac Efron, Amanda Bynes, Queen Latifah and newcomer Nikki Blonsky as Tracy. Although according to Variety, none of the actors had a sequel clause in their contracts.

For me, even more important than the cast returning is the news that Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman are going to write new songs for the sequel. The score of Hairspray is one of my all-time favorites. (Plus, I was thrilled to actually meet Scott Wittman in New York in May, and he is a very sweet, gracious man).

Writing partners Shaiman and Wittman, who have also been life partners for more than 25 years, created some brilliant, catchy tunes. Songs like "Good Morning Baltimore," "The Nicest Kids in Town," "You Can't Stop the Beat" and "Run and Tell That" perfectly capture the spirit of 1962. Plus, "I Know Where I've Been" is such a great civil-rights anthem, it sounds like it could have been written in the '60s.

Besides the music, of course, two other big reasons for the appeal of Hairspray are its compelling story and its unforgettable characters. Because I love the original so much, I'm really excited about a sequel. But I think that this is uncharted territory. I mean, musicals don't usually have sequels, do they? Will John Waters be able to come up with a plot that's as dramatic? After you've integrated The Corny Collins Show, what can you do for an encore?

Update: One of the cool things about Marc Shaiman is that he keeps in touch with his fans through the Broadway World message boards. (Yes, they're a guilty pleasure. I'm addicted to them). Here's what he had to say today about the prospects for a Hairspray sequel:

"They've simply hired John Waters to write a treatment. That is like a marriage proposal (and an exciting one), but it is not a birth announcement. But, ya' have to admit, it's impressive that the movie studio actually came to the creators (of the film) to do this. That is practically unheard of in Hollywood (think GREASE 2). And Lord knows Scott & I could write songs for these characters (and any new ones John Waters dreams up!) for the rest of our lives."