Talkie Tuesday: Hairspray Live

"Good morning, Baltimore!"

Hello everyone!

So every once in a while I run into something that makes me think: I need to see this.

Desperately. 

When news broke that Derek Hough had been cast as Corny Collins in the new rendition of Hairspray which would air during the holiday season, I did a little happy jig.

I will admit here and now that I'm a Hough fan, whether it's Julianne or Derek, and especially of Derek because I honestly think the man is an artistic genius. The choreography he can put together is spectacular, either in it's complexity or simplicity, and I've loved watching him on Dancing with the Stars.

Ergo, I was sold on watching Hairspray Live! before they even released news about who would play Tracy or Link or anyone else.

Honestly, you'd think that I would have at least waited until the trailer, but nope, my excitement levels were high even before that.

Of course, then what happens is that when I get as excited as I am, inevitably I have a very hard, very uncomfortable and very rough landing.

Unfortunately, this was what happened with Hairspray Live!

I think I might have figured out that I need to stay away from NBC's musical productions (Sound of Music Live was also something I want to erase from my memory), since in the beginning of the year, FOX released Grease! Live, which I loved. I mean, obviously it's not the original production, or the movie, BUT, to those people complaining the actors who played the roles were too old to play teenagers in high school:

there's a very, very good reason for that.

You might want to hire teenagers for the roles, or twenty-somethings that are still fresh-faced and youthful, but generally speaking they don't yet have the mileage behind them to be able to pull off iconic roles. Occasionally, it'll work out for directors when they find special youngsters who become megastars, but in general, this isn't a recipe for success, in my opinion.

And it kind of showed in Hairspray Live!

Not that I'm saying they were all teenagers or something, but they were absolutely on the young-ish side and when it came to the chops they'd need and will probably acquire over the following years, they just didn't have them.

I'm sorry to admit I didn'tactually watch the musical all the way through. For me, when watching something, whether it's a movie or a TV show, and especially a musical production, I need to be hooked within the first half an hour, ten minutes, or song number, respectively. If it doesn't happen, then inevitably I'm going to fast-forward. Or stop watching.

I fast forwarded on Hairspray.

The first number, Good Morning Baltimore, is such an iconic one which I fell in love with in the 2007 movie (one that I loved, by the way, so I have nothing against Hairspray, and generally speaking I'm okay with remakes), and that fell so flat in this musical.

It didn't help that the girl who was chosen to play Tracy messed up the lyrics, or forgot a portion.

That was the way downhill for me since I couldn't even focus on the story anymore. I kind of fast forwarded to check out the big numbers, watching for Derek more than anything else, and attempting to watch You Can't Stop the Beat ...

Oh goodness gracious.

Now, for those of you gearing up to scream: it's live! It's different from a movie where you can do more takes!

Allow me to point out that there are performers even at this moment on a stage somewhere and doing precisely what the people on Hairspray Live! were tasked to do: putting on a live performance.

Here's where you need the mileage. You need the stamina. You need to be able to perform from beginning to end, several times per day, especially in theatre, and for this one hour and a half, you NEED to be ON PAR.

Because when you're not, it shows.

They had months to prepare. Months to rehearse. Months to get things right. 

Instead, it felt like they glued this together out of ill-fitting jigsaw pieces over two weeks, and crossed their fingers hoping it would work.

I get it, going live is nerve-wrecking, but considering the amount of preparation time, they should have been able to recite the whole thing backwards after being woken up at midnight. They should have sang all the songs and still had enough breath left for an encore performance at the end while running.

I think I actually read somewhere (might have been in Derek's book, actually) that trying to make sure there would be no out-of-breath, voice-breaking scenarios, the person ran on a treadmill and sang all the songs from the musical they were in until they got it without a hitch.

This kind of thing takes preparation, and I felt, after barely making it through three musical numbers, that there was very little of it here. Which is sad, because I'm sure there was - just not the right kind, apparently.

It's such a shame, because in general, the outlook of the musical was amazing, and I was SO excited for it ... only to be so extremely disappointed when I wrapped up after twenty or so minutes and had to watch some Air Crash Investigation to reboot my thought process.

I'm sorry if this blog post seems harsh - but when you sign up for a commitment that's a live musical, you have to prepare and give it your all.

On this, I felt like there was maybe 60% effort given. And that just made me sad.

xx

*images and video not mine