Good Morning, Baltimore!

Penny and Seaweed.

Tracy and Edna

"What are you guys doing Wednesday night?"

It's staggering how little Dan and I are invited out. Usually, we're promoting someone else's thing,  and inviting people to come out to it.

So, when we were invited to a closed dress rehearsal of the Portland Players doing Hairspray, I wanted to make the effort to go.

Now, when it comes to drag related stuff I'm usually pretty on top of things. I knew of Hairspray, because I watched the movie version with John Travolta as Edna Turnblad, but, aside from clips of Divine in the original role, I was totally ignorant of the Divine version.

So, going into the play, I didn't know what to expect. After all, local theater tends to be a little...flat, I think, compared to professional theater.  And, having no idea who was even in the play, I really just went to have a fun date night with Dan.  It took a lot of self-control to leave my camera home.

The play started and I was amazed at the actors. They were good. Most fit their parts quite well. A few of the characters I liked, because, you're supposed to, like Tracy. I was totally entranced by Edna, because the actor brought something to the role that John Travolta just didn't. Dan said that he was channeling Divine. (I played along like I knew what that meant, then admitted that I had never seen the original.) The characters of Penny Pingleton and her mother, were standouts in this version. Mrs. Pingleton was a company actor, so we got to see her in three completely different roles. The best of which, was as the gym teacher. When it came to Penny, the transformation from geeky sidekick to made over, integrated girlfriend of Seaweed, it was amazing. She kind of stole the show from Tracy.

During the break, Dan and I both discussed how weird it was to be at a show as audience members. Which shows just how much life has changed for me over the last few years. A few years ago, I never would have thought of taking a camera with me to any show I went to...and here I was, at times watching the official photographer, thinking, "Why would you take that from there, when it would be a much better picture from center stage?" And, well, Dan being out as a boy, and Shaunna Rai not being part of anything, it was weird for him too.

On the way home, the only criticism we had for the show was, Edna should've had boobs. Big, gigantic boobs. And Dan talked about what he would've done with the hair. Given that the play is about big hair and the hair was a major player in both the play and the movie, they could've done so much more...And part of that, is that he's a hairdresser, and lives for that kind of thing...thus the reason that he has a whole room in the apartment devoted to Shaunna Rai's hair.

The show was a great time, and quite well done. It plays through the first week of June at the Portland Players, on Cottage St. in So. Portland.

Upon leaving we thanked Steven and Michael, who had invited us to the show. It'd been forever since we'd had a date night, and this was a good one. And, it gave me a task, as well...to watch the original.

So, two nights after seeing the play, we decided that it was time for me to get taught about "the real Hairspray."  Not really understanding that the movie version with Divine and Ricki Lake came before the musical, I spent a good portion of the movie waiting for someone to bust out in song.

It was amazing, seeing what started it all. Divine was believable as a woman. It was so funny. And, I was excited that I could finally cross one movie off my list of movies that I should've seen by now, but haven't.  And, while I will always have a love for Queen Latifah as Motormouth Maybelle, Divine as Edna has moved the original to the list of movies that I will watch again and again.