Marc Malkin

Cry-Baby

Move over, Hairspray: There’s a new John Waters musical in town.

If you haven’t heard, Cry-Baby, Waters’ 1990 flick about a '50s-era clash between high school greasers and country-club prepsters, has been turned into a musical.

I caught Saturday’s matinee at the La Jolla Playhouse just outside San Diego (it moves to Broadway in late winter), and I think it’s going to be just as big as the eight-time Tony Award-winning Hairspray.

Taking on the role of greaser gang leader Cry-Baby (played by Johnny Depp in the movie) is James Snyder, who delivers an explosion of a performance. While his character is played for laughs, Snyder never dips into caricature. You really do believe him when he says he’s never shed a tear (hence his nickname).

Cry-Baby

Elizabeth Stanley plays squeaky-clean Allison, the unlikely object of Cry-Baby’s affection. She is pure candy-cane sweetness, and she even gives you goosebumps declaring her love for Cry-Baby by singing, “Someone slipped a mickey into my polio vaccine.”

The choreography will floor you. Choreographer Rob Ashford makes every one of these hoofers earn their pay—and then some. The dancing is sexy, full of unimaginable twists and turns and never lets up. Tap dancing will never be the same now that the men of the Cry-Baby ensemble performed with license plates on the bottom of their shoes.

I got the chance yesterday to chat with Adam Epstein, one of the producers of Cry-Baby. “What a great way to look at the 1950s—through John Waters’ eyes,” Epstein said while on the phone from his New York City office. “It’s the subversive anti-Grease.”

It certainly is, with songs like “The Anti-Polio Picnic,” “Watch Your Ass,” “I’m Infected” and “Screw Loose.”

2007 Bruce Glikas

Epstein (at left, flanked by Stanley and Snyder) also coproduced Hairspray. While Waters was involved with the making of Hairspray, Epstein says he was even more so with Cry-Baby. “His role is creative consultant, but I always call him the creative godfather,” Epstein says. “And I always thank him for that. He’s like a studio executive. He oversees and gives us notes.”

But Waters never really got in the way. “He’s such a great collaborator,” Epstein says. “There is never a sense of 'this is mine' and 'this is how you should do it.' He knows it’s an adaptation of the movie.”

Epstein insists he’s not thinking of a Cry-Baby musical movie. He says he’s not only too preoccupied with Cry-Baby’s Broadway debut, he’s also working on a musical adaptation of the Drew Barrymore flick Ever After and a revival of Godspell.

Even so, who does he think could fill Cry-Baby’s shoes on the big screen? “James Franco,” Epstein says, before adding with a laugh, “But could he sing?”

I’m sure he could if he had to.