Just like the slang term “fetch,” the “Mean Girls” musical never quite ignites in the imagination.
No matter how hard the insanely high-energy cast tries to charm in the musical’s recent tour stop in San Jose, you can’t help wishing it was as effortlessly sparkling as the classic 2004 teen movie that made Lindsay Lohan a star.
Don’t get me wrong, Tina Fey (forever famed for “30 Rock”) is a national treasure and her book is as razor-sharp as you’d expect from the queen of clever, and there’s oodles of bouncy choreography framing the teenage tribulations of our heroine Cady Heron (Natalie Shaw), who grew up on the African savannah but never confronted the savagery of nature until she moved to the American suburbs, where status rules and her only friends are the artsy outsiders Janis (Alexys Morera) and Damian (Ethan Jih-Cook).
Here, she must fight for survival amid the reign of Regina George (Maya Petropoulos), the leader of the Plastics, and her mindless minions, the low self-esteem BFF Gretchen (Kristen Amanda Smith) and the gleefully dopey Karen (Maryrose Brendel).
Director/choreographer Casey Nicholaw (“The Book of Mormon”) gives the musical an adorably frenetic vibe that nails the pulse of our ADHD culture, a society that prizes Instagram-worthiness over authenticity.
But it’s still hard to shake the niggling sense that it all feels a little warmed over, a little too obviously recycled to be truly hilarious. For the record, the tuner first premiered in 2017 at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C., on its way to a 2018 Broadway opening and the latest movie iteration came out last year. “Mean Girls” is now its own cottage industry. It may not be fresh but it will likely never expire either.
Certainly, the first act sags a bit. The characters feel saucer-shallow and most of the songs don’t really snap until the second act when the over earnestness gives way to Fey’s fierce wisecracking. Shaw and Petropoulos also seem stiff in the bland and bouncy act one, slowly relaxing into a more ironic vibe as the show unfolds. The point of their little love triangle, the hottie Aaron (Joseph Torres) seems utterly generic.
Of course, if you weren’t alive when the original movie came out, you may well see things a bit differently.
My kiddo, Daphne, 13, for instance, just can’t get enough of the “Mean Girls” oeuvre, no matter the medium. She’s in middle school now and coping with bullies of her own, which makes this narrative deeply relevant, alas.
She particularly loved Cady’s anthem to the “Apex Predator” in which she wryly notes that you can never tell if Regina wants to braid your hair or eat your heart.
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As before, Fey deftly deconstructs the bloodthirsty nature of high school, a battle royale over where to sit in the cafeteria.
Taken in that light, this is a cathartic mother-daughter night out that lets you laugh at the ludicrous pressures society puts on girls, even if it makes you want to cry that so little changes from one generation to the next. Sometimes wit is as good as it gets.
Daphne and her pal Ellie both giggled throughout Karen’s hilarious Halloween song, in which she wishes for world peace and also Halloween everyday so she could always be sexy, the one constant in girl costumes, like sexy mouse or sexy Rosa Parks or sexy doctor curing sexy cancer.
“When you are the hot one it’s a full-time gig/Looking like what people want to see,” sings a delightfully deadpan Brendel.
Asked about the show’s message, Ellie, 14, quipped that viewers should take a page from Cady’s book and spend most of high school hiding out in Kenya.
If that’s not an option for you, don’t forget, on Wednesdays, we wear pink.
Contact Karen D’Souza at karenpdsouza@yahoo.com.
MEAN GIRLS
Book by Tina Fey, music by Jeff Richmond, lyrics by Nell Benjamin,based on the 2004 Paramount Pictures film; presented by Broadway San Jose
Through: March 24
Where: Center for the Performing Arts, 255 Almaden Blvd. San Jose
Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes, one intermission
Tickets: 408-792-4111. Broadway San Jose | Hits. Close to Home.