The production is the latest in a growing line of stage productions inspired by the big screen. Like the film, the stage adaptation tells the story of a plump teen from 1960s Baltimore who dreams of appearing on a television dance show.
The production was a smash on Broadway, where it won eight Tony Awards, including the trophy for best musical. The Canadian version stars Vanessa Olivarez as the irrepressible Tracy Turnblad.
Olivarez, 22, is the former American Idol contestant who made a mark on the small screen with her pink hair and outsize personality. She endeared herself to TV viewers by telling the show's catty judges that she knew she had a big "booty - but so does J. Lo."
Vanessa Olivarez (CP photo)
Veteran Vancouver actor Jay Brazeau plays Tracy's mother, Edna, the character originated by the transvestite Divine.
In the words of the show's official website, Hairspray is "piled bouffant-high with laughter, romance and enough deliriously tuneful new songs to fill a nonstop platter party."
The movie represented a departure for Waters, who was known up until Hairspray for his campy and sometimes sick sense of humour. In one famous scene in his 1972 movie Pink Flamingos , for instance, Divine scoops up a pile of dog feces from the ground and eats it.
"It was a surrealist publicity stunt," Waters said in an interview with The Toronto Star's theatre critic, Richard Ouzounian, this week. "I'm a carny and it was the ultimate freak-show thing of 'Come inside the tent and see what weird stuff we're doing.'"
