With hints of Hairspray (we’re in Baltimore), Grease (it’s 1954), and West Side Story by way of Romeo and Juliet (love across the square and hip divide), Cry-Baby is a lively and intense musical making its English stage debut.
Directed by Mehmet Egen and boasting more than 20 songs by David Javerbaum and Adam Schlesinger, Cry-Baby captures the moment that rock ‘n’ roll captured young America, threatening the social mores of morality, class, and duty.
At an ‘anti-polio picnic’ led by the ‘squares’, rebel Wade, known as Cry-Baby, meets Alison, a good girl ‘who doesn’t want to be’. Although he is shunned and mocked due to his parents being convicted and executed for murder, they find a spark of mutual affection.
The book by Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan is heavily dependent on the cult classic John Waters 1990 film, but offers a sense of parody alongside a sliver of social conscience.
Problematic issues are only briefly addressed (teenage pregnancy, racism – at the country club, only ‘members’ (i.e. not the (black) waiters) can utilise the nuclear bunker, authoritarian violence) in favour of an upbeat mix of lyrics and dialogue.
Adam Davidson is deeply charismatic and physically energetic as Cry-Baby, while Lulu-Mae Pears impresses as Alison, who shakes herself out of boring routine and expectations fairly quickly. They have good chemistry and feel believable as people on that confusing cusp of adulthood.
Elsewhere in the cast, Chad Saint Louis has knock-out vocals, Shirley Jameson offers complexity as Allison’s grandmother, and there’s a fun duet (“All In My Head”) from the show’s disruptors (Elliot Allinson as Baldwin, Eleanor Walsh as Lenora).
The songs are catchy, whether an over-earnest quartet from Baldwin and his friends, the ‘Whiffles’ in their tank tops and wide grins, or a rock-out bonanza from Cry-Baby and his fellow ‘Drapes’. Highlights include “A Whole Lot Worse,” “A Little Upset,” and “Nothing Bad,” which forces a happy ending we know the USA didn’t get.
The set and costumes by Robert Innes Hopkins foregrounds the Stars & Stripes painted on the wall, with a glossy floor and graffited road signs. The Whiffles have squeaky clean hair, the Drapes are daring, roughed-up, and unruly. It adds to the period feel.
Cry-Baby boasts a lot of movement and dancing, with Chris Whittaker making the most of the small stage area. It gives a close-up exhilaration that is almost dangerous, especially if you are in the front row.
Musical director Ashton Moore and sound designer Matt Giles ensure the experience is passionate without becoming overwhelming, while David Howe’s lighting design evokes a sense of purpose and drama.
This is an unmissable piece of musical theatre that offers a peek into the lives of those born in the late 1930s, early 1940s, ‘the silent generation’. The central love story is warm and thrilling, the changing society deftly defined, the performances uniformly ‘a smash’.
5 stars.
Cry-Baby continues at the Arcola Theatre in Dalston until 12 Apr – ticket here.
Image credit: Charlie Flint