It is a truth universally acknowledged that every great chick flick—and this might be what differentiates such a flick from a less gender-specified romcom—contains a third-act montage of self-empowered female transformation. The best part of Chick Flick the Musical, a breathless theatrical tribute to that popcorny genre, comes at the top of its penultimate number, when this chick musical about chick flicks recognizes the absurdity of those sudden reinventions.
“In Legally Blonde, Elle Woods ignores Warner, focuses on her studies, and rises to the top of the class,” says one of the four women with whom we’ve spent the last 80-odd minutes. “All in two minutes and eight seconds.” “In Freaky Friday, Jaime Lee Curtis goes from conservative suit-wearing mom to motorcycle-riding momma,” says another, “in one minute and ten seconds.”
Then the gals launch into a song called “Makeover Montage,” a number in which they indeed highlight the unironic self-empowering transformations we’ve been watching. That late, hopeful glimmer of effectively winking self-awareness is gone.
[Read Melissa Rose Bernardo’s ★★ review here.]
Which is, sadly, pretty much par for the course in this aggressively cheery, entirely unbelievable, bring-the-bachelorettes musical that opened tonight upstairs at the Westside Theatre. Chick Flick the Musical is exactly what you expect it to be, for better and for worse, and that might well be enough to earn it a dedicated girls-night-out audience.
Certainly it’s working hard to pull in that crowd. You enter the theater to an unexpectedly charming set (by Jason Sherwood), a stylized living room surrounded by lightly genericized versions of the classic posters for touchstone romcoms — Mama Mia, La La Land, Devil Wears Prada, all with “Chick Flick” emblazoned where the titles should be. And then the show opens with a big and brassy production number about the wonders of chick flicks, the escapism, the feminism, the hunky male leads. Before it’s over, we’ve had the first of many Chardonnay jokes and, already, a Harry Met Sally orgasm scene.
The plot is this: Four old friends gather periodically for a chick flick and some wine (and some more wine). They’re all chick-flick obsessed, and they quote chick flicks to each other. Our host for the night is Karen (Sharon Catherine Brown), a writer who married well and does unfufilling freelance work when she’s not organizing benefits. She is joined by Sheila (Lindsay Nicole Chambers), a Kathy Griffith look-and-sound-alike whose defining feature is that she dates a lot. Meg (Carla Duren), is a successful baker who lacks the confidence to break up with her cheating boyfriend. And then there’s Dawn (Megan Sikora), an actor who once seemed on the cusp of success but now can’t even book a local TV spot.
Over the course of 14 songs (with music and lyrics by Suzy Conn, who also wrote the script), these friends will fight and make up, drink slightly too much, and ultimately help each other gain the confidence they need to make their next moves. They dance, obligatorily, with wine held aloft. The action is relentlessly upbeat, even in those brief moments of argument. (Meg, you see, is jealous of Karen’s wealth, and Karen is jealous of Meg’s freedom. Lucy wants to be Jessie, and Jessie Lucy.) So is everything else: The songs come at you, the dancing comes at you, the amplification comes at you.
As such, David Ruttura’s direction is relentless. Sarah O’Gleby’s choreography is high-energy party moves, a lot of shaken hips, waving arms, and pops and locks. The four performers work hard, though only Duren as Meg — who gets two atypically soulful numbers — stands out.
There is the possibility this could have been something more interesting, a deeper reconsideration of the genre and its cliches, a feminist reinterpretation of a style based on very traditional gender norms. There could have been, in other words, a self-actualizing reinvention.
But that’s not this play, and probably not something for the Westside. Conn and her cocreators are wagering that there’s enough sororital fondness for chick flicks that groups of women will bond over a not-great musical that celebrates groups of women bonding over not-great movies. With enough Chardonnay, it’s not impossible.
Chick Flick the Musical opened March 7, 2019, at the Westside Theatre and runs through March 31. Tickets and information: chickflickthemusical.com
