La Jolla Playhouse has taken a crack at the next film-to-stage adaptation with their production of “Working Girl,” based on the 1988 film starring Melanie Griffith, Harrison Ford and Sigourney Weaver.
The stage show features music and lyrics by Cyndi Lauper and book by Theresa Rebeck.
Tess (Joanna “JoJo” Levesque) is a secretary in a man’s world of Wall Street in the 1980s. Just when she’s about to break from feeling undervalued and overworked, her new boss, Katharine (Lesley Rodriguez Kritzer), comes in to show that women can run things just like the boys can. However, after Katharine steals Tess’s ideas and tries to pass them off as her own, Tess takes matters into her own hands and works her way to the top without permission from anyone. Along with help from her new friend, Jack (Anoop Desai), Tess learns that you sometimes need to break the rules to get where you need to be.
The songs by Cyndi Lauper are, of course, catchy, fun and perfectly 80s. However, several of the songs added have nothing to do with the plot, nor do they add anything to the characters. Jack’s solo, “Dream in Royalty,” is an energetic, elevated dance number, but its sole purpose is to establish that Jack is a good dancer. Does this ever come back around to play into the overall story or serve a purpose? No, it does not.
Unfortunately, the entire script suffers from this problem. There are so many unnecessary moments that don’t seem to advance the story. Again, it feels like they’re added just to increase the runtime. If a film needs lots of filler to turn it into a stage show, it might not be the right movie to turn into a musical in the first place.
Production-wise, the show is clean, precise and well-executed. Christopher Ashley (in his last directorial role before leaving the Playhouse) and choreographer Sarah O’Gleby use the space and set perfectly. Everything moves as it should, and there is never a step out of place.
Levesque is likable and fun as Tess. Her voice is stellar and nails every Cyndi Lauper song perfectly. However, aside from the things that happen to and around her, it doesn’t feel like Tess undergoes much inner character development. Kritzer’s performance as Katherine served as a great source of levity and humor, with the audience laughing every time she returned to the stage. Desai is incredibly talented and hit the role of Jack with every triple-threat tool in the belt. Although his song didn’t do much for the story, it is still fun and catchy.
The set was designed by AMP featuring Erica Jiaying Zhang. While every set was tailored to the scene perfectly, it did ultimately come down to a big wall of screens. After a while, the space started to feel a little hollow, with nothing actually built besides the movable set pieces like desks and rolling chairs. Amanda Zieve’s lighting kept the show bright and energetic, while Linda Cho’s colorful and outlandish 80s costume design sparkled under the lights. And Charles G. LaPointe’s wig design? Perfectly large, fluffy and covered in Aqua Net.
This is a well-oiled machine of a show, with everything being executed perfectly. But, ultimately, this doesn’t feel like a movie that needed to be turned into a musical. Perhaps some further tweaking of the songs and script could yield a better film-to-stage adaptation.
(Photo credit: Rich Soublet II)
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