The Wedding Singer (musical)

Hence the return of big hair and shoulders to fashion's runways; the preponderance of Web sites with names like "inthe80s.com"; and animated television scrapbooks, like "I Love the '80s" on VH1, where third-tier celebrities provide snarky commentary about their favorite period bands, movies and celebrities. And now, mining the same much-plundered vein, is "The Wedding Singer," the assembly-kit musical that opened last night at the Al Hirschfeld Theater and might as well be called "That 80's Show."

This transformation of a Hollywood movie into a Broadway musical, a trend that appears as irreversible as global warming, is an example of recycled recycling, or second-hand nostalgia. The film "The Wedding Singer," which became a big hit, thanks largely to its romantic leads, Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, was also set in the mid-1980s, but it was made in the late 1990s. Remember the 1990s? Ah, how we laughed. Would that we could recapture the charm and innocence of how we looked at the 1980s in those days.

In fairness, "The Wedding Singer" - which features songs by Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin and a book by Tim Herlihy (who also wrote the screenplay for the movie) and Mr. Beguelin - is hardly a low point in a Broadway season that has given us "Lennon," "In My Life" and "Lestat." True, it consists of little more than winks and nods and quotations. Entire stretches of dialogue are composed of titles of vintage songs, which are imitated as dutifully as copyright law allows in Mr. Sklar's pastiche score. And Rob Ashford's choreography is replete with literal-minded tributes to 1980s music videos for era-defining songs like "Thriller," "Material Girl" and "Flashdance."

But the show has at least a flutter of a hedonist's pulse. And if its formulaic catering to an established public appetite feels cynical, the cast members exude earnestness and good nature. They are a personable enough lot, which is not the same as saying that they have personality.

For, as so often happens when good (or even not-so-good) films turn into stage shows, the first things to be jettisoned are sharp edges and authentically quirky characters. (Decades ago, when Broadway still had a mind of its own, the same process occurred when stage shows were made into Hollywood musicals.) I need utter only three words to make my case: "Saturday Night Fever."

The plot of this "Wedding Singer," directed with bland peppiness by John Rando, sticks closely to that of the movie. The title character, Robbie Hart (played here by Stephen Lynch), is a would-be rock star who makes do by fronting a band that plays wedding receptions in Ridgefield, N.J. He's good at his job because he's in love with love and the notion of happily ever after—that is, until he is left standing at the altar by his skanky fiancée (the enjoyably trashy Felicia Finley). His only hope of salvation lies in the form of Julia Sullivan (Laura Benanti), a sweet, clumsy waitress who unfortunately already has a boyfriend, a Wall Street junk bonds whiz kid (Richard H. Blake).

It's a wispy plot, even by the standards of romantic comedy. What made the movie more or less bearable was Mr. Sandler, a king of low comedy, subduing his frat-house instincts to create a surprisingly gentle portrait of a loser. Plus there was the dewier-than-daybreak Ms. Barrymore, who managed to make even vomit jokes smell like roses. (The vomit jokes, by the way, have been nixed for the stage version. The four-letter words remain.) Neither Mr. Lynch nor Ms. Benanti, though obviously gifted, shows much original presence here. Mr. Lynch is best known as a performer of self-subverting comic songs that move from conventional prettiness to shock-effect humor. This would seem to make him a natural replacement for Mr. Sandler.

But while Mr. Lynch is charming as Robbie in an angry or depressed mood (he does especially well by the two oddball songs retained from the movie, written by Mr. Sandler with Mr. Herlihy), he is more often called upon to be appealingly boyish, bringing to mind a less vain, less glib Ryan Seacrest. Ms. Benanti, a dark-haired enchantress in the revival of "Into the Woods," goes Barrymore blond for "The Wedding Singer" and winds up looking like that sharp-featured beacon of on-screen efficiency, Helen Hunt. This Julia has a shrewd, calculating look that makes her less than convincing as a starry-eyed klutz.

On the other hand, characterization is clearly secondary in "The Wedding Singer," which is why a supporting cast stocked with sui generis talents tends to turn into a pasteboard parade. That includes Amy Spanger (a standout in the revival of "Kiss Me, Kate") as Julia's cousin, a Madonna wannabe ; Kevin Cahoon (the Childcatcher in "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang") as a member of Robbie's band and a Boy George wannabe; and Rita Gardner (the -gasp! - original Girl in "The Fantasticks") as a sweet little old grandmother who raps, break-dances and talks dirty.

Despite these performers' game efforts, most of their characters feel only a hair's breadth away from the posse of celebrity impersonators (dressed up as Billy Idol, Cyndi Lauper, Tina Turner, Ronald Reagan and Imelda Marcos, among others) who are rounded up for the show's climax in a Las Vegas wedding chapel. Only the excellent Matthew Saldivar, as Robbie's best friend (a Van Halen wannabe), registers as a bona fide character, authentically defined by his time and place.

That place, of course, is Ridgefield, which has been reconstructed with affectionate cartoon tackiness in Scott Pask's sets. (Gregory Gale's even tackier costumes should by rights single-handedly put a stop to an 80's revival in fashion.) "The Wedding Singer" makes no bones about appealing directly to nearby out-of-towners. "New York is reserved for the rich and proud,/ But here comes the bridge and tunnel crowd," sings the ensemble in a number set in a Manhattan disco.

But Jerseyphilia must take a back seat to the show's broader raison d'être: to create a singing, dancing version of "Trivial Pursuit: '80s Edition." This ambition filters through sight gags (Julia's fiancé totes a cellphone with an oversized battery and drives a DeLorean with a license plate that says "XMAS BONUS") and little-did-we-know jokes about subjects like Starbucks and the New Coke.

It says everything about this musical's priorities that it brings down its first-act curtain not on a suspenseful or emotional moment between Robbie and Julia but on the image of a scantily dressed woman in profile in a chair (Ms. Spanger) being doused with a bucket of water. If that image doesn't make you think "What a feeling!," then "The Wedding Singer" is probably not your show. Ben Brantley[2]

It also lends itself naturally to musical comedy, with Chad Beguelin joining the original screenwriter Tim Herlihy to adapt its plot of boy-ditched-at-altar and girl-ditches-another-boy-at-wedding-chapel into a sly if rather obvious portrait of heterosexual mating rituals. But as played with an effortlessly straight (if not always straight-faced) swagger in Nick Winston's energetic, enjoyable production, the show occupies a place somewhere between Legally Blonde and the pastiche guitar rock flavours of School of Rock.

Jon Robyns lends the title character wit and vulnerability in equal measure, in which he finds himself jilted but still having to entertain happy couples celebrating their wedding day. Robyns has long been a West End stalwart but here he happily moves into a league of leading players in the Killian Donnelly mould of seemingly unassuming men who have powerhouse singing, acting and dancing credentials. He is also appealingly partnered by Cassie Compton as the woman he falls in love with, while former Brookside actor (and sometime X Factor runner-up) Ray Quinn is also maturing into playing a cockily confident love rat.

As so often nowadays, the establishing of place and time depends on video projections, but a frame of large light boxes around the stage contains the action neatly. -Mark Shenton[7]