By Sandi Masori
SAN DIEGO, California — “On Wednesdays we wear pink.” Anyone who has seen the 2004 teen movie Mean Girls will recognize this iconic line. Following the trend to take popular movies and turn them into Broadway musicals, Mean Girls is playing at the Civic Theatre now through March 5.
Based on the book by Tina Fey, Mean Girls is a high school comedy about a girl named Cady (English Bernhardt) who moves from Kenya to an American high school and tries to find her way and her place in her new world. In the performance I attended, two major parts were performed by understudies. Iain Young and Adriana Scalese subbed respectively for Eric Huffman and Lindsay Heather Pearce.
Cady is befriended by the kids in the welcoming committee, Damien (Iain Young), and Janis (Adriana Scalese). Together they cook up a plot to knock the resident bully/ popular girl Regina George (Nadina Hassan) off her pedestal. In the course of this action, Cady becomes the type of person she disliked and then has to find her way back to herself.
The show explores a lot of high school/ teen issues, like the lunchroom seating arrangements, girls feeling like they need to play stupid to catch the guy they want, the devastating effects of social media, and especially how awful girls can be to each other.
Young really stood out in his performance as Damien- so much so that I was really surprised to learn that he was the understudy. He, Jasmine Rodgers, who was a standout in the part of Gretchen, some of the ensemble cast, and the musical conductor came out after the show for the Chatback. That is a tradition on the first Wednesday of most Broadway San Diego shows at the Civic Theatre where some of the actors come out and talk to the audience and answer questions. Usually there’ are 2-3 actors, but this time we were treated to a panel of six.
I was glad that Young and Rodgers came out to talk to us so I could ask them about one of the lines in a song. The line was “sitting at her right hand like a Jewish Princess Jesus,” and was referring to Rodgers character who was yes girl number one to bully Regina. Though the character in the movie is Jewish, and many references are made to that in the movie, this was the only reference in the play. I was confused by it because it seemed to me that the only Jewish reference being kind of a slur didn’t really add anything to the play and didn’t really tell us anything about the character. Another reference in the same scene was about her big hair.
When I asked the actors about it they said that they imagined that other references may have been lost in the attempt to condense the movie into a musical, but that the writers wanted to preserve the funny lines. Since there was no other development in the character connected to her being Jewish, and no one else’s ethnicity or religion is mentioned in the show, I’m not sure that that line should have made the cut. Most likely no one else watching the show even noticed the line, or really thought about it, but as always, I’m looking for that Jewish angle and can’t help myself from ruminating over such things.
The set design was really clever, utilizing an intricate backdrop of digital screens that allowed complex scene changes and scenery to be done very quickly and effectively. Also in the Chatback the actors mentioned how happy they were that the Civic is such a large theatre and they were able to get all of the sets and props onto the stage. Apparently at some of the smaller theatres, modification to the set design have to be made.
The show was cute and fun, but probably not memorable. As with the movie, it’s a great show to watch with your kids, and can open a nice discussion on teen angst in its various forms. Like other movies turned to musicals though, the songs, while entertaining, are not the kind to have you listening to the album on repeat. I’m not sure why this genre has so much trouble getting memorable musical numbers, but so far in the movie to Broadway adaptions I’ve seen, they just don’t seem to get it. I still recommend going to see them however- they’re worth the watch, even if you won’t be singing the chorus the next day.
The Civic does a good job picking shows and while I may have little complaints about details within the show, I’ve enjoyed every performance I’ve seen there. Not every show has a Chatback, but if you are lucky enough to get tickets on a Wednesday when there is one, I highly recommend sticking around after the show for the more intimate session. I’m always surprised by how few people actually stay around, so the available seats and opportunity to get your question answered are abundant.
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Sandi Masori is a restaurant and food reviewer for San Diego Jewish World. She also helps aspiring authors self- publish professionally, does crafts for fun, and loves to hang out with her almost fully grown kids whenever they can find time for her.