It's alive and well at the Mac-Haydn Theatre in Chatham, NY. Going to see a show at this 350-seat theater is like entering a time machine. It transports you to the Catskills of Marjorie Morningstar, where bright-eyed Broadway hopefuls would spend the summer at hotels or camps and stage a new musical every week. The Mac-Haydn ambitiously stages seven musicals in the round every summer, which takes guts, gumption and heart. (I know that sounds corny, but everything about the musical comedy genre is corny.) You half expect to see June Allyson and Mickey Rooney tap dancing in the barn on the hill adjacent to the Columbia County Fairgrounds. Instead, you get a mixture of college drama students, aspiring professionals, and a couple of members of Actors' Equity, who've been doing the national tours of Broadway shows during the winter. No seat is more than 30-feet from the stage, so you can look into the eyes of these actors and see their eager-to-please earnestness. I was wary of seeing the current production of Hairspray, because I'd seen it twice on Broadway with two different casts that were both outstanding, and I was sure I'd be let down. I kept rationalizing the $28 ticket price and thinking, If it is 1/4 as good as the Broadway version than I got my money's worth. By the raise-the-rafters finale, I had decided this was a bona fide bargain because John Saunders as Edna Trunblad (the role originated by Harvey Fierstein) was a a Broadway quality peformance. It's a tough roll for a man to play a woman wearing a fat suit and dancing in heels (John Travolta failed miserably in the movie version) and Saunders was as convincing as he was entertaining. While the company obviously does not skimp when it comes to costumes or wigs (some of the hairdos in the finale are laugh out loud funny), it cuts corners by using canned music instead of a live band. And not every member of the cast could belt out a number—and every number in this show has the potential to be a show stopper—but the snappy direction and cast's enthusiasm kept the show on course. So did the inventive choreography, which is tricky on a round stage; there's the risk that every number look will like a square dance or Esther Williams water ballet. But choreographer Christine Negherbon obviously has endless creativity and energy, and she keeps the actors circulating so you don't feel like you are missing out on what's happening on the other side of the stage. Hairspray is a great show for kids: It's upbeat and the plot about integrating a teen dance TV show in the early 1960s is like a sugar coated history lesson. (What's more, tickets are just $12 for children under twelve.) What's really magical about the Mac-Haydn is that you're aware that there are a lot friends and family in the audience cheering for their loved ones on stage, and by the final curtain call you feel like you're one of the friends and family, too.
The Mac-Haydn production of "Hairspray" runs through July 20
