From left to right, Laura Bell Bundy, Kerry Butler, and Marissa Jaret Winokur, who starred in Hairspray together, reunite for Mama I’m a Big Girl Now!
Mama I’m a Big Girl Now!, the new musical entertainment at New World Stages, seems so eager to race to the exclamation point that it’s even missing a comma. The show wants to spread exuberance, excitement, and joy. It mostly succeeds.
The concept is simplicity itself: Take three musical divas, veterans who starred together in a major hit 20-some years back and remained friends. Get them out front and center to strut their stuff, reminisce, and affectionately josh each other. Nostalgia will blossom, even as you’re listening to their voices to compare the then with the now. Generally, they’ve held up just fine.
The major hit show: Hairspray. Marissa Jaret Winokur’s Tracy Turnblad won a Tony, while Kerry Butler created the role of BFF Penny Pingleton and Laura Bell Bundy was evil Amber Von Tussle. No Tonys for those two, but they scooped up nominations elsewhere, Butler for Xanadu and Bundy for Legally Blonde. They had busy careers beyond that: Butler tore through Beetlejuice, Mean Girls, Catch Me If You Can, Disaster!, Rock of Ages, and the 2003 Little Shop of Horrors, while Bundy starred Off-Broadway in Ruthless! shortly after her ninth birthday (her understudy: Britney Spears) and went on to be a Glinda replacement in Wicked and star recently in The Cottage.
While Butler sings something from Moana, her co-stars provide the wind effect.
You’ll hear songs or snatches of songs from most of those, and plenty from other musicals, as well as some pop—how about a mash-up of “Ruthless” and “Oops! I Did It Again”? No high concepts here: The curtain rises (does anyone else miss curtains?), and Winokur, her two pals eventually joining in, lights into the title song, sounding not unlike 2002 and reminding us of the freshness of Marc Shaiman’s music and wit of Scott Wittman’s lyrics: “Someday I will meet a man you won’t condemn / And we will have some kids and you can torture them.”
Rear projections (no one’s credited) mainly show the women in past roles and with their spouses and kids, and sometimes it’s hard to know where to concentrate, on the live talent or the projections. There’s plenty to look at: Chadd McMillan’s production design is basic, but whoever designed the costumes—again, no credit—created enough frills and spangles for several musicals. Andrew Byrne’s three-piece band mostly succeeds in not drowning out the actors, though the unbilled sound designer might have dialed it down a bit.
And the vocals? All three women hew so closely to their mics that they practically swallow them, but that’s not to say their voices aren’t powerful. Bundy’s is probably the lightest, getting somewhat lost in “Omigod You Guys” (Legally Blonde), but she leads in litheness, forever pirouetting or doing splits. Winokur is the belter, with a Merman trumpet that goes into full tribute mode in “There’s No Business Like Show Business.” And Butler’s voice is the prettiest and most versatile, able to hold long notes while diminuendo-ing into pianissimo with the expertise of a Met soprano.
Bundy in a spangled pantsuit and Winokur in an early Tracy getup. Photographs by Rus Rowland.
There are amusing stories, such as Liza’s backstage visit to Winokur or Butler’s habit of recording demos for musicals and then not getting the part. And there are brief but affecting moments of more seriousness, such as Winokur’s cancer scare during Hairspray and Butler’s sweet monologue on meeting her Mr. Right. Motherhood is a major theme, with mom-and-kid projections of varying adorableness, framed by a few bars of the mother of all mother songs, Baby’s “The Story Goes On.” It would be nice to hear all of it.
The three women, surprisingly and to their credit, not only assembled Mama I’m a Big Girl Now!, they co-produced, co-wrote, and co-directed it. In the latter capacity, their inexperience does occasionally show: What’s meant to be spontaneous girlfriend chat has a rehearsed quality, and the three background singers, Carla Hargrove, Mitchell Gerrard Johnson, and Margot Plum, are too relegated to the background. (Johnson does get one moment in the spotlight, duetting with Butler on Hairspray’s “You Can’t Stop the Beat,” and it makes us hungry for more.) Winokur, Bundy, and Butler also presumably pitched in on the choreography, though Brooke and Tiffany Engen are billed as “movement consultants.”
But the three clearly adore one another, or if they don’t, they sure fake it well. They’ve cleverly engineered their own standing ovation, rousing the audience to get up and dance for the finale, but they’d have gotten one anyway. That’s followed by a darling video coda that leaves one giggly, and is a reminder that these big girls are big, big talents.
Mama I’m a Big Girl Now! runs through Dec. 21 at New World Stages (340 W. 50th St.). Evening performances are 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday (no performances Nov. 22 or Dec. 6) and Sunday at 7 p.m.; matinees are at 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Tickets are available by visiting mamaimabiggirlnow.com.
Playwrights: Laura Bell Bundy, Kerry Butler, Marissa Jaret Winokur
Directors: Laura Bell Bundy, Kerry Butler, Marissa Jaret Winokur
Production Design: Chadd McMillan
