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Mean Girls at the August Wilson Theater

I love the movie Mean Girls. It's a perfect funny and smart movie with an amazing that transcends the "teen movie" label.

And now it's a musical.

I can see why screenwriter Tina Fey thought it was a good idea to turn it into a musical. In addition to Mean Girls being a very strong property, it has captured the zeitgeist and fourteen years later people still say things like "Four for you, Glen Coco" and "fetch" and "is butter a carb?" Yours truly even has one of those phrases on a t-shirt. The love for this movie alone would turn the musical into a big, fat hit.

But something is missing.

I'm at loathe to say that lightning doesn't strike twice because that's not quite the problem here. No, I think there are two major problems with Mean Girls. The first being the score by Jeff Richmond and Nell Benjamin isn't strong enough to a make case to turn this movie into a musical. No song is particularly strong or memorable, and it's not full of the catchy pop songs I expected it to be. Perhaps naively, I expected something similar to Nell Benjamin's other musical Legally Blonde. If Richmond was attempting to create a pastiche with his score, he doesn't quite succeed. Nor does it make any sense. These are sixteen and seventeen year old higher school students, they should be singing the poppiest of pop songs! And the songs don't really enhance the action. When the score isn't good enough, it doesn't support the case of turning the movie into a musical. Why should these people sing? Why do these people sing?

(I hate to say that maybe Jeff Richmond wasn't the best choice for this project but I suspect that wasn't even called into question at any point during the creation of the show.)

Tina Fey has also written the book to the musical, and while some of the famous lines are still there, a lot of them are surprisingly not. It's as though Fey went out of her way to rewrite them. I was even anticipating some lines and when they didn't happen I was like, "huh, well, that's...different." And yes, I do like when shows deviate from their source material. If I wanted to see a carbon copy of the Mean Girls movie, I'd just stay at home and pop in the DVD. But the book's problem is that I think it relies on the audience knowing the movie. The ideas are all there but not fleshed out. Something or someone is introduced but not developed because duh, the audience already knows the joke. It's especially noticeable at the end of the second act when the plot comes to a head. I can't imagine anyone who didn't know the movie would understand anything involving the Burn Book. We're told Cady is best friends with Janis and Damien but we don't really see them interact beyond their introduction. Regina is admired and idolized by everyone in the school but that is so underdeveloped in the musical, as though it only exists because it happens in the movie.

Another major problem is the framing device. The show is framed with narration from Damien and Janis, telling the audience a cautionary tale. But it doesn't quite make sense, nor is it seen through to the end of the show. The worst offense is that Cady, the main protagonist, has periodic asides to the audience as well. So there's narration inside of narration? Aren't these asides just another framing device? How do Damien and Janis know what's happening in Cady's head? Shows don't need a framing device. You can just tell the story. But if you are going to add one, do it right. See it through. Make it make sense.

I think the real problem with Mean Girls as a musical is that it does not have the charm of the film. The film has a ton of clever, subtle bits that are just hilarious. On stage, everything is heightened and bloated. Yes, that's the nature of a musical. Things are heightened. I get it. But when the events of the plot aren't organically musical, things just come off charmless and tasteless. And because this is a Casey Nicholaw musical, everything is frantically paced. There's a lot of (mediocre) choreography. There's even a tap number! There are very few quiet, subtle numbers or moments. And Fey has shoehorned a number of topical political references that feel out of place and won't age well. She's done a good job of updating the plot to include smart phones and social media references but I wish she had left the politics out of it. (I also think it's tasteless that there are plenty of moments about empowering women but Regina's big downfall seems to stem from her weight gain. The book only glosses over Karen and Gretchen turning away or Aaron breaking up with her. The change in her body isn't played for the same cheap laughs in the movie, and it's tasteless that Fey is making people laugh at Regina just because she gained a bit of weight.)

Oh, but it's not all bad. Ashley Park, who is one of the most talented in the game right now, is terrific and hilarious as Gretchen Weiners, and Kate Rockwell gives winning and funny performance as Karen. Taylor Louderman's voice is outstanding, and Grey Henson avoids stereotype and is charming, funny, and all-around wonderful as Damien. The cast of the film version was so strong, and the musical benefits from having a cast that matches its strength.



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